WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Alarms  and  Discursions 

All  Things  Considered 

The  Ballad  of  the  White  Horse 

Charles  Dickens 

The  Flying  Inn 

George  Bernard  Shaw 

Heretics 

The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown 

Manalive 

The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday 

The  Napoleon  of  Netting  Hill:  A  Romance 

Orthodoxy 

Poems 

A  Short  History  of  England 

The  Superstition  of  Divorce 

Tremendous  Trifles 

The  Uses  of  Diversity 

Varied  Types 

What's  .Wrong  with  the  World 

The  Wisdom  of  Father  Brown 


WHAT  I  SAW 
IN  AMERICA 


BY 

G.  K.  CHESTERTON 

Author  of  "HERETICS,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1922 


61  1 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  Iiro. 

PBINTED  IN  U.  fl.  A. 

H   ?  /  D  «7  *r 


VAIL-BALLOU    COMPANY 

•INQHAMTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

WHAT  is  AMERICA?     .     »     .     .     .    :..    .     ..,    .     .  i 

A  MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEL 19 

A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY 33 

IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS     , 47 

SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES    ......     .     ...  63 

IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  .    , .     .79 

THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN 95 

PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS     .     ., 118 

PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY 141 

FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION   .     . 158 

THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN 176 

THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS     ......  188 

Is  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?  .........  201 

LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES  .     .*,     .     .     ..    ,..     .     .  214 

WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE  .     .     .     ....     .  226 

A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT     ........  243 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  .........  257 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND      .     .     ...     .     .*     .     *     .  270 

THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY  .     .     .    .„    ,«    ...    *     .  284 


491094 


WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 


WHAT    IS   AMERICA? 

I  HAVE  never  managed  to  lose  my  old  conviction  that 
travel  narrows  the  mind.  At  least  a  man  must  make 
a  double  effort  of  moral  humility  and  imaginative 
energy  to  prevent  it  from  narrowing  his  mind.  Indeed 
there  is  something  touching  and  even  tragic  about  the 
thought  of  the  thoughtless  tourist,  who  might  have  stayed 
at  home  loving  Laplanders,  embracing  Chinamen,  and 
clasping  Patagonians  to  his  heart  in  Hampstead  or  Sur- 
biton,  but  for  his  blind  and  suicidal  impulse  to  go  and 
see  what  they  looked  like.  This  is  not  meant  for  non 
sense  ;  still  less  is  it  meant  for  the  silliest  sort  of  nonsense, 
which  is  cynicism.  The  human  bond  that  he  feels  at 
home  is  not  an  illusion.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  rather  an 
inner  reality.  Man  is  inside  all  men.  In  a  real  sense  any 
man  may  be  inside  any  men.  But  to  travel  is  to  leave  the 
inside  and  draw  dangerously  near  the  outside.  So  long 
as  he  thought  of  men  in  the  abstract,  like  naked  toiling 
figures  in  some  classic  frieze,  merely  as  those  who  labour 
and  love  their  children  and  die,  he  was  thinking  the  fun 
damental  truth  about  them.  By  going  to  look  at  their  un 
familiar  manners  and  customs  he  is  inviting  them  to  dis 
guise  themselves  in  fantastic  masks  and  costumes.  Many 
modern  internationalists  talk  as  if  men  of  different  na 
tionalities  had  only  to  meet  and  mix  and  understand  each 
other.  In  reality  that  is  the  moment  of  supreme  danger 

l 


X 


2  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

— the  moment  when  they  meet.     We  might  shiver,  as  at 
the  old  euphemism  by  which  a  meeting  meant  a  duel. 

Travel  ought  to  combine  amusement  with  instruction; 
but  most  travellers  are  so  much  amused  that  they  refuse 
to  be  instructed.     I  do  not  blame  them  for  being  amused ; 
it  is  perfecty  natural  to  be  amused  at  a  Dutchman  for 
being  Dutch  or  a  Chinaman  for  being  Chinese.     Where 
they  are  wrong  is  that  they  take  their  own  amusement 
seriously.     They  base  on  it  their  serious  ideas  of  inter 
national  instruction.     It  was  said  that  the  Englishman 
takes  his  pleasures  sadly;  and  the  pleasure  of  despising 
foreigners  is  one  which  he  takes  most  sadly  of  all.     He 
comes  to  scoff  and  does  not  remain  to  pray,  but  rather  to 
excommunicate.     Hence  in  international  relations  there 
is  far  too  little  laughing,  and  far  too  much  sneering.     But 
I  believe  that  there  is  a  better  way  which  largely  consists 
of  laughter;  a  form  of  friendship  between  nations  which 
is  actually  founded  on  differences.     To  hint  at  some  such 
better  way  is  the  only  excuse  of  this  book. 
*  Let  me  begin  my  American  impressions  with  two  im 
pressions  I  had  before  I  went  to  America.     One  was  an 
incident  and  the  other  an  idea;  and  when  taken  together 
they  illustrate  the  attitude  I  mean.     The  first  principle  is 
that  nobody  should  be  ashamed  of  thinking  a  thing  funny 
because  it  is  foreign;  the  second  is  that  he  should  be 
ashamed  of  thinking  it  wrong  because  it  is  funny.     The 
reaction  of  his   senses   and  superficial  habits  of  mind 
against  something  new,  and  to  him  abnormal,  is  a  per 
fectly  healthy  reaction.     But  the  mind  which  imagines 
that  mere  unf  amiliarity  can  possibly  prove  anything  about 
inferiority  is  a  very  inadequate  mind.     It  is  inadequate 
even  in  criticising  things  that  may  really  be  inferior  to  the 
things  involved  here.     It  is  far  better  to  laugh  at  a  negro 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  3 

for  Having  a  black  face  than  to  sneer  at  him  for  having 
a  sloping  skull.  It  is  proportionally  even  more  prefer 
able  to  laugh  rather  than  judge  in  dealing  with  highly 
civilised  peoples.  Therefore  I  put  at  the  beginning  two 
working  examples  of  what  I  felt  about  America  before  I 
saw  it ;  the  sort  of  thing  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  enjoy 
as  a  joke,  and  the  sort  of  thing  he  has  a  duty  to  under 
stand  and  respect,  because  it  is  the  explanation  of  the 
joke. 

When  I  went  to  the  American  consulate  to  regularise 
my  passports,  I  was  capable  of  expecting  the  American 
consulate  to  be  American.  Embassies  and  consulates  are 
by  tradition  like  islands  of  the  soil  for  which  they  stand ; 
and  I  have  often  found  the  tradition  corresponding  to  a 
truth.  I  have  seen  the  unmistakable  French  official  living 
on  omelettes  and  a  little  wine  and  serving  his  sacred  ab 
stractions  under  the  last  palm-trees  fringing  a  desert.  In 
the  heat  and  noise  of  quarrelling  Turks  and  Egyptians,  I 
have  come  suddenly,  as  with  the  cool  shock  of  his  own 
shower-bath,  on  the  listless  amiability  of  the  English 
gentleman.  The  officials  I  interviewed  were  very  Ameri 
can,  especially  in  being  very  polite;  for  whatever  may 
have  been  the  mood  or  meaning  of  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  I 
have  always  found  Americans  by  far  the  politest  people  in 
the  world.  They  put  in  my  hands  a  form  to  be  filled  up, 
to  all  appearances  like  other  forms  I  had  filled  up  in  other 
passport  offices.  But  in  reality  it  was  very  different  from 
any  form  I  had  ever  filled  up  in  my  life.  At  least  it  was  a 
little  like  a  freer  form  of  the  game  called  'Confessions' 
which  my  friends  and  I  invented  in  our  youth ;  an  exami 
nation  paper  containing  questions  like,  'If  you  saw  a  rhi 
noceros  in  the  front  garden,  what  would  you  do  ?'  One 
of  my  friends,  I  remember,  wrote,  Take  the  pledge/ 


4  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

But  that  is  another  story,  and  might  bring  Mr.  Pussyfoot 
Johnson  on  the  scene  before  his  time. 

One  of  the  questions  on  the  paper  was,  'Are  you  an 
anarchist?'  To  which  a  detached  philosopher  would 
naturally  feel  inclined  to  answer,  'What  the  devil  has  that 
to  do  with  you  ?  Are  you  an  atheist  ?'  along  with  some 
playful  efforts  to  cross-examine  the  official  about  what 
constitutes  an  a^x7?-  Then  there  was  the  question, 
'Are  you  in  favour  of  subverting  the  government  of  the 
United  States  by  force?'  Against  this  I  should  write, 
'I  prefer  to  answer  that  question  at  the  end  of  my  tour 
and  not  the  beginning/  The  inquisitor,  in  his  more  than 
morbid  curiosity,  had  then  written  down,  'Are  you  a  po- 
lygamist?'  The  answer  to  this  is,  'No  such  luck'  or  'Not 
such  a  fool,'  according  to  our  experience  of  the  other  sex'. 
But  perhaps  a  better  answer  would  be  that  given  to  W.  T. 
Stead  when  he  circulated  the  rhetorical  question,  'Shall 
I  slay  my  brother  Boer?' — the  answer  that  ran,  'Never 
interfere  in  family  matters.'  But  among  many  things 
that  amused  me  almost  to  the  point  of  treating  the  form 
thus  disrespectfully,  the  most  amusing  was  the  thought  of 
the  ruthless  outlaw  who  should  feel  compelled  to  treat  it 
respectfully.  I  like  to  think  of  the  foreign  desperado, 
seeking  to  slip  into  America  with  official  papers  under 
official  protection,  and  sitting  down  to  write  with  a  beauti 
ful  gravity,  'I  am  an  anarchist.  I  hate  you  all  and  wish 
to  destroy  you.'  Or,  'I  intend  to  subvert  by  force  the 
government  of  the  United  States  as  soon  as  possible, 
sticking  the  long  sheath-knife  in  my  left  trouser-pocket 
into  Mr.  Harding  at  the  earliest  opportunity.'  Or  again, 
'Yes,  I  am  a  polygamist  all  right,  and  my  forty-seven 
wives  are  accompanying  me  on  the  voyage  disguised  as 
secretaries.'  There  seems  to  be  a  certain  simplicity  of 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  5 

mind  about  these  answers ;  and  it  is  reassuring  to  know 
that  anarchists  and  polygamists  are  so  pure  and  good 
that  the  police  have  only  to  ask  them  questions  and  they 
are  certain  to  tell  no  lies. 

Now* that  is  the  model  of  the  sort  of  foreign  practice, 
founded  on  foreign  problems,  at  which  a  man's  first  im 
pulse  is  naturally  to  laugh.  Nor  have  I  any  intention  of 
apologising  for  my  laughter.  A  man  is  perfectly  en 
titled  to  laugh  at  a  thing  because  he  happens  to  find  it 
incomprehensible.  What  he  has  no  right  to  do  is  to  laugh 
at  it  as  incomprehensible,  and  then  criticise  it  as  if  he 
comprehended  it.  The  very  fact  of  its  un familiarity  and 
mystery  ought  to  set  him  thinking  about  the  deeper  causes 
that  make  people  so  different  from  himself,  and  that  with 
out  merely  assuming  that  they  must  be  inferior  to  himself. 

Superficially  this  is  rather  a  queer  business.  It  would 
be  easy  enough  to  suggest  that  in  this  America  has  intro 
duced  a  quite  abnormal  spirit  of  inquisition;  an  interfer 
ence  with  liberty  unknown  among  all  the  ancient  despot 
isms  and  aristocracies.  About  that  there  will  be  some 
thing  to  be  said  later ;  but  superficially  it  is  true  that  this 
degree  of  officialism  is  comparatively  unique.  In  a  jour 
ney  which  I  took  only  the  year  before  I  had  occasion  to 
have  my  papers  passed  by  governments  which  many 
worthy  people  in  the  West  would  vaguely  identify  with 
corsairs  and  assassins ;  I  have  stood  on  the  other  side  of 
Jordan,  in  the  land  ruled  by  a  rude  Arab  chief,  where  the 
police  looked  so  like  brigands  that  one  wondered  what  the 
brigands  looked  like.  But  they  did  not  ask  me  whether  I 
had  come  to  subvert  the  power  of  the  Shereef ;  and  they 
did  not  exhibit  the  faintest  curiosity  about  my  personal 
views  on  the  ethical  basis  of  civil  authority.  These  minis 
ters  of  ancient  Moslem  despotism  did  not  care  about 


6  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

whether  I  was  an  anarchist ;  and  naturally  would  not  have 
minded  if  I  had  been  a  polygamist.  The  Arab  chief  was 
probably  a  polygamist  himself.  These  slaves  of  Asiatic 
autocracy  were  content,  in  the  old  liberal  fashion,  to 
judge  me  by  my  actions;  they,  did  not  inquire  into  my 
thoughts.  They  held*  their  power  as  limited  to  the  limita 
tion  of  practice;  they  did  not  forbid  me  to  hold  a  theory. 
It  would  be  easy  to  argue  here  th*at  Western  democracy 
persecutes  where  even  Eastern  despotism  tolerates  or 
emancipates.  It  would  be  easy  to  develop  the  fancy  that, 
as  compared  with  the  sultans  of  Turkey  or  Egypt,  the 
American  Constitution  is  a  thing  like  the  Spanish  Inqui 
sition. 

Only  the  traveller  who  stops  at  that  point  is  totally 
wrong ;  and  the  traveller  only  too  often  does  stop  at  that 
point.  He  has  found  something  to  make  him  laugh,  and 
he  will  not  suiffer  it  to  make  him  think.  And  the  remedy 
is  not  to  unsay  what  he  has  said,  not  even,  so  to  speak,  to 
'unlaugh  what  he  has  laughed,  not  to  deny  that  there  is 
something  unique  and  curious  about  this  American  inqui 
sition  into  our  abstract  opinions,  but  rather  to  continue  the 
train  of  thought,  and  follow  the  admirable  advice  of 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  said,  'It  is  not  much  good  thinking 
of  a  thing  unless  you  think  it  out/  It  is  not  to  deny  that 
American  officialism  is  rather  peculiar  on  this  point,  but  to 
inquire  what  it  really  is  which  makes  America  peculiar, 
or  which  is  peculiar  to  America.  In  short,  it  is  to  get 
some  ultimate  idea  of  what  America  is;  and  the  answer 
to  that  question  will  reveal  something  much  deeper  and 
grander  and  more  worthy  of  our  intelligent  interest. 

It  may  have  seemed  something  less  than  a  compliment 
to  compare  the  American  Constitution  to  the  Spanish 
Inquisition.  But  oddly  enough,  it  does  involve  a  truth, 


V 
WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  7 

and  still  more  oddly  perhaps,  it  does  involve  a  compli 
ment.  The  American  Constitution  does  resemble  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  in  this :  that  it  is  founded  on  a  creed. 
America  is  the  only  nation  in  the  world  that  is  founded 
on  a  creed.  That  creed  is  set  forth  with  dogmatic  and 
even  theological  lucidity  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence;  perhaps  the  only  piece  of  practical  politics  that  is 
also  theoretical  politics  and  also  great  literature.  It 
enunciates  that  all  men  are  equal  in  their  claim  to  justice, 
that  governments  exist  to  give  them  that  justice,  and  that 
their  authority  is  for  that  reason  just.  It  certainly  does 
condemn  anarchism,  and  it  does  also  by  inference  con 
demn  atheism,  since  it  clearly  names  the  Creator  as  the 
ultimate  authority  from  whom  these  equal  rights  are  de 
rived.  Nobody  expects  a  modern  political  system  to  pro 
ceed  logically  in  the  application  of  such  dogmas,  and  in 
the  matter  of  God  and  Government  it  is  naturally  God 
whose  claim  is  taken  more  lightly.  The  point  is  that  there 
is  a  creed,  if  not  about  divine,  at  least  about  human 
things. 

Now  a  creed  is  at  once  the  broadest  and  the  narrowest 
thing  in  the  world.  In  its  nature  it  is  as  broad  as  its 
scheme  for  a  brotherhood  of  all  men.  In  its  nature  it  is 
limited  by  its  definition  of  the  nature  of  all  men.  This 
was  true  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  was  truly  said 
to  exclude  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  but  which  did  definitely 
substitute  something  else  for  Jewish  religion  or  Greek 
philosophy.  It  was  truly  said  to  be  a  net  drawing  in  of 
all  kinds;  but  a  net  of  a  certain  pattern,  the  pattern  of 
Peter  the  Fisherman.  And  this  is  true  even  of  the  most 
disastrous  distortions  or  degradations  of  that  creed;  and 
true  among  others  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  It  may 
have  been  narrow  about  theology,  it  could  not  confess  to 


8  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

being  narrow  about  nationality  or  ethnology.  The  Span 
ish  Inquisition  might  be  admittedly  Inquisitorial ;  but  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  could  not  be  merely  Spanish.  Such 
a  Spaniard,  even  when  he  was  narrower  than  his  own 
creed,  had  to  be  broader  than  his  own  empire.  He  might 
burn  a  philosopher  because  he  was  heterodox ;  but  he  must 
accept  a  barbarian  because  he  was  orthodox.  And  we 
see,  even  in  modern  times,  that  the  same  Church  which 
is  blamed  for  making  sages  heretics  is  also  blamed  for 
making  savages  priests.  Now  in  a  much  vaguer  and 
more  evolutionary  fashion,  there  is  something  of  the 
same  idea  at  the  back  of  the  great  American  experiment; 
the  experiment  of  a  democracy  of  diverse  races  which 
has  been  compared  to  a  melting-pot.  But  even  that  meta 
phor  implies  that  the  pot  itself  is  of  a  certain  shape  and 
a  certain  substance;  a  pretty  solid  substance.  The  melt 
ing-pot  must  not  melt.  The  original  shape  was  traced 
on  the  lines  of  Jeffersonian  democracy;  and  it  will  remain 
in  that  shape  until  it  becomes  shapeless.  America  invites 
all  men  to  become  citizens ;  but  it  implies  the  dogma  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  citizenship.  Only,  so  far  as  its 
primary  ideal  is  concerned,  its  exclusiveness  is  religious 
because  it  is  not  racial.  The  missionary  can  condemn  a 
cannibal,  precisely  because  he  cannot  condemn  a  Sandwich 
Islander.  And  in  something  of  the  same  spirit  the  Amer 
ican  may  exclude  a  polygamist,  precisely  because  he  can 
not  exclude  a  Turk. 

Now  for  America  this  is  no  idle  theory.  It  may  have 
been  theoretical,  though  it  was  thoroughly  sincere,  when 
that  great  Virginian  gentleman  declared  it  in  surround 
ings  that  still  had  something  of  the  character  of  an  Eng 
lish  countryside.  It  is  not  merely  theoretical  now. 
There  is  nothing  to  prevent  America  being  literally  in- 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  9 

vaded  by  Turks,  as  she  is  invaded  by  Jews  or  Bulgars. 
In  the  most  exquisitely  inconsequent  of  the  Bab  Ballads, 
we  are  told  concerning  Pasha  Bailey  Ben : — 

One  morning  knocked  at  half-past  eight 
A  tall  Red  Indian  at  his  gate. 
In  Turkey,  as  you'r'  p'raps  aware. 
Red  Indians  are  extremely  rare. 

But  the  converse  need  by  no  means  be  true.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  things  to  prevent  an  emigration 
of  Turks  increasing  and  multiplying  on  the  plains  where 
the  Red  Indians  wandered ;  there  is  nothing  to  necessitate 
the  Turks  being  extremely  rare.  The  Red  Indians,  alas, 
arc  likely  to  be  rarer.  And  as  I  much  prefer  Red  Indians 
to  Turks,  not  to  mention  Jews,  I  speak  without  prejudice; 
but  the  point  here  is  that  America,  partly  by  original 
theory  and  partly  by  historical  accident,  does  lie  open  to 
racial  admixtures  which  most  countries  would  think  incon 
gruous  or  comic.  That  is  why  it  is  only  fair  to  read  any 
American  definitions  or  rules  in  a  certain  light,  and 
relatively  to  a  rather  unique  position.  It  is  not  fair  to 
compare  the  position  of  those  who  may  meet  Turks  in 
the  back  street  with  that  of  those  who  have  never  met 
Turks  except  in  the  Bab  Ballads.  It  is  not  fair  simply  to 
compare  America  with  England  in  its  regulations  about 
the  Turk.  In  short,  it  is  not  fair  to  do  what  almost  every 
Englishman  probably  does ;  to  look  at  the  American  inter 
national  examination  paper,  and  laugh  and  be  satisfied 
with  saying,  'We  don't  have  any  of  that  nonsense  in  Eng 
land/ 

We  do  not  havta  any  of  that  nonsense  in  England  be 
cause  we  have  never  attempted  to  have  any  of  that  phil 
osophy  in  England.  And,  above  all,  because  we  have  the 


io  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

enormous  advantage  of  feeling  it  natural  to  be  national, 
because  there  is  nothing  else  to  be.  England  in  these  days 
is  not  well  governed ;  England  is  not  well  educated ;  Eng 
land  suffers  from  wealth  and  poverty  that  are  not  well 
distributed.  But  England  is  English;  esto  perpetua. 
England  is  English  as  France  is  French  or  Ireland  is 
Irish;  the  great  mass  of  men  taking  certain  national  tra 
ditions  for  granted.  Now  this  gives  us  a  totally  different 
and  a  very  much  easier  task.  We  have  not  got  an  inqui 
sition,  because  we  have  not  got  a  creed ;  but  it  is  arguable 
that  we  do  not  need  a  creed,  because  we  have  got  a  char 
acter.  In  any  of  the  old  nations  the  national  unity  is 
preserved  by  the  national  type.  Because  we  have  a  type 
we  do  not  need  to  have  a  test. 

Take  that  innocent  question,  'Are  you  an  anarchist? 
which  is  intrinsically  quite  as  impudent  as  'Are  you  an 
optimist?'  or  'Are  you  a  philanthropist?'  I  am  not  dis 
cussing  here  whether  these  things  are  right,  but  whether 
most  of  us  are  in  a  position  to  know  them  rightly.  Now 
it  is  quite  true  that  most  Englishmen  do  not  find  it  nec 
essary  to  go  about  all  day  asking  each  other  whether  they 
are  anarchists.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  phrase  occurs  on 
no  British  forms  that  I  have  seen.  But  this  is  not  only 
because  most  of  the  Englishmen  are  not  anarchists.  It 
is  even  more  because  even  the  anarchists  are  Englishmen. 
For  instance,  it  would  be  easy  to  make  fun  of  the  Amer 
ican  formula  by  noting  that  the  cap  would  fit  all  sorts 
of  bald  academic  heads.  It  might  well  be  maintained 
that  Herbert  Spencer  was  an  anarchist.  It  is  practi 
cally  certain  that  Auberon  Herbert  was  an  anarchist. 
But  Herbert  Spencer  was  an  extraordinary  typical 
Englishman  of  the  Nonconformist  middle  class.  And 
Auberon  Herbert  was  an  extraordinarily  typical  English 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  n 

aristocrat  of  the  old  and  genuine  aristocracy.  Every 
one  knew  in  his  head  that  the  squire  would  not  throw  a 
bomb  at  the  Queen,  and  the  Nonconformist  would  not 
throw  a  bomb  at  anybody.  Evc-ry  one  knew  that  there 
was  something  subconscious  in  a  man  like  Auberon 
Herbert,  which  would  have  come  out  only  in  throwing 
bombs  at  the  enemies  of  England;  as  it  did  come  out  in 
his  son  and  namesake,  the  generous  and  unforgotten,  who 
fell  flinging  bombs  from  the  sky  far  beyond  the  German 
line.  Every  one  knows  that  normally,  in  the  last  resort, 
the  English  gentleman  is  patriotic.  Every  one  knows 
that  the  English  Nonconformist  is  national  even  when 
he  denies  that  he  is  patriotic.  Nothing  is  more  notable 
indeed  than  the  fact  that  nobody  is  more  stamped  with 
the  mark  of  his  own  nation  than  the  man  who  says  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  nations.  Somebody  called  Cobden 
the  International  Man ;  but  no  man  could  be  more  English 
than  Cobden.  Everybody  recognises  Tolstoy  as  the 
iconoclast  of  all  patriotism;  but  nobody  could  be  more 
Russian  than  Tolstoy.  In  the  old  countries  where  there 
are  these  national  types,  the  types  may  be  allowed  to 
hold  any  theories.  Even  if  they  hold  certain  theories 
they  are  unlikely  to  do  certain  things.  So  the  conscien 
tious  objector,  in  the  English  sense,  may  be  and  is  one 
of  the  peculiar  by-products  of  England.  But  the  con 
scientious  objector  will  probably  have  a  conscientious 
objection  to  throwing  bombs.  < 

Now  I  am  very  far  from  intending  to  imply  that 
these  American  tests  are  good  tests  or  that  there  is  no 
danger  of  tyranny  becoming  the  temptation  of  America. 
I  shall  have  something  to  say  later  on  about  that  temp 
tation  or  tendency.  Nor  do  I  say  that  they  apply  con 
sistently  this  conception  of  a  nation  with  the  soul  of  a 


12  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

church,  protected  by  religious  and  not  racial  selection. 
If  they  did  apply  that  principle  consistently,  they  would 
have  to  exclude  pessimists  and  rich  cynics  who  deny  the 
democratic  ideal ;  an  excellent  thing  but  a  rather  improb 
able  one.  What  I  say  is  that  when  we  realize  that  this 
principle  exists  at  all,  we  see  the  whole  position  in  a 
totally  different  perspective.  We  say  that  the  Ameri 
cans  arc  doing  something  heroic  or  doing  something  in 
sane,  or  doing  it  in  an  unworkable  or  unworthy  fash 
ion,  instead  of  simply  wondering  what  the  devil  they  are 
doing. 

When  we  realise  the  democratic  design  of  such  a  cos 
mopolitan  commonwealth,  and  compare  it  with  our  insu 
lar  reliance  or  instincts,  we  see  at  once  why  such  a  thing 
has  to  be  not  only  democratic  but  dogmatic.  We  see 
why  in  some  points  it  tends  to  be  inquisitive  or  intoler 
ant.  Any  one  can  see  the  practical  point  by  merely 
transferring  into  private  life  a  problem  like  that  of  the 
two  academic  anarchists,  who  might  by  a  coincidence 
be  called  the  two  Herberts.  Suppose  a  man  said, 
'Buffle,  my  old  Oxford  tutor,  wants  to  meet  you;  I  wish 
you'd  ask  him  down  for  a  day  or  two.  He  has  the 
oddest  opinions,  but  he's  very  stimulating/  It  would 
not  occur  to  us  that  the  oddity  of  the  Oxford  don's 
opinions  would  lead  him  to  blow  up  the  house;  because 
the  Oxford  don  is  an  English  type.  Suppose  some 
body  said,  'Do  let  me  bring  old  Colonel  Robinson  down 
for  the  week-end;  he's  a  bit  of  crank  but  quite  inter 
esting.'  We  should  not  anticipate  the  colonel  running 
amuck  with  a  carving-knife  and  offering  up  human 
sacrifice  in  the  garden;  for  these  are  not  among  the 
daily  habits  of  an  old  English  colonel;  and  because  we 
know  his  habits,  we  do  not  care  about  his  opinions. 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  13 

But  suppose  somebody  offered  to  bring  a  person  from 
the  interior  of  Kamskatka  to  stay  with  us  for  a  week 
or  two,  and  added  that  his  religion  was  a  very  extraor 
dinary  religion,  we  should  feel  a  little  more  inquisitive 
about  what  kind  of  religion  it  was.  If  somebody  wished 
to  add  a  Hairy  Ainu  to  the  family  party  at  Christmas, 
explaining  that  his  point  of  view  was  so  individual  and 
interesting,  we  should  want  to  know  a  little  more  about 
it  and  him.  We  should  be  tempted  to  draw  up  as  fan 
tastic  an  examination  paper  as  that  presented  to  the  emi 
grant  going  to  America.  We  should  ask  what  a  Hairy 
Ainu  was,  and  how  hairy  he  was,  and  above  all  what 
sort  of  Ainu  he  was.  Would  etiquette  require  us  to 
ask  him  to  bring  his  wife?  And  if  we  did  ask  him  to 
bring  his  wife,  how  many  wives  would  he  bring?  In 
short,  as  in  the  American  formula,  is  he  a  polygamist? 
Merely  as  a  point  of  houskeeping  and  accommodation 
the  question  is  not  irrelevant.  Is  the  Hairy  Ainu  content 
with  hair,  or  does  he  wear  any  clothes?  If  the  police 
insist  on  his  wearing  clothes,  will  he  recognise  the  author 
ity  of  the  police?  In  short,  as  in  the  American  formula, 
is  he  an  anarchist? 

Of  course  this  generalisation  about  America,  like 
other  historical  things,  is  subject  to  all  sorts  of  cross 
divisions  and  exceptions,  to  be  considered  in  their  place. 
The  negroes  are  a  special  problem,  because  of  what 
white  men  in  the  past  did  to  them.  The  Japanese  are 
a  special  problem,  because  of  what  men  fear  that  they 
in  the  future  may  do  to  white  men.  The  Jews  are  a 
special  problem,  because  of  what  they  and  the  Gentiles, 
in  the  past,  present  and  future,  seem  to  have  the  habit  of 
doing  to  each  other.  But  the  point  is  noft  that  nothing 
exists  in  America  except  this  idea;  it  is  that  nothing 


14  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

like  this  idea  exists  anywhere  except  in  America.  This 
idea  is  not  internationalism;  on  the  contrary  it  is  decid 
edly  nationalism.  The  Americans  are  very  patriotic,  and 
wish  to  make  their  new  citizens  patriotic  Americans. 
But  it  is  the  idea  of  making  a  new  nation  literally  out  of 
any  old  nation  that  comes  along.  In  a  word,  what  is 
unique  is  not  America  but  what  is  called  Americanisation. 
We  understand  nothing  till  we  understand  the  amazing 
ambition  to  Americanise  the  Kamskatkan  and  the  Hairy 
Ainu.  We  are  not  trying  to  Anglicise  thousands  of 
French  cooks  or  Italian  organ  grinders.  France  is 
not  trying  to  Gallicise  thousands  of  English  trippers  or 
•German  prisoners  of  war.  America  is  the  one  place  in 
the  world  where  this  process,  healthy  or  unhealthy,  pos 
sible  or  impossible,  is  going  on.  And  the  process,  as  I 
have  pointed  out,  is  not  internationalisation.  It  would  be 
truer  to  say  it  is  the  nationalisation  of  the  international 
ised.  It  is  making  a  home  out  of  vagabonds  and  a 
nation  out  of  exiles.  This  is  what  at  once  illuminates 
and  softens  the  moral  regulations  which  we  may  really 
think  faddist  or  fanatical.  They  are  abnormal;  but  in 
one  sense  this  experiment  of  a  home  for  the  homeless 
is  abnormal.  In  short,  it  has  long  been  recognised  that 
America  was  an  asylum.  It  is  only  since  Prohibition 
that  it  has  looked  a  little  like  a  lunatic  asylum. 

It  was  before  sailing  for  America,  as  I  have  said,  that 
I  stood  with  the  official  paper  in  my  hand  and  these 
thoughts  in  my  head.  It  was  while  I  stood  on  English 
soil  that  I  passed  through  the  two  stages  of  smiling  and 
then  sympathising;  of  realising  that  my  momentary 
amusement,  at  being  asked  if  I  were  not  an  Anarchist, 
was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  I  was  not  an  American. 
And  in  truth  I  think  there  are  some  things  a  man  ought 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  15 

to  know  about  America  before  he  sees  it.  What  we  know 
of  a  country  beforehand  may  not  affect  what  we  see 
that  it  is;  but  it  will  vitally  affect  what  we  appreciate  it 
for  being,  because  it  will  vitally  affect  what  we  expected  it 
to  be.  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  had  never  expected 
America  to  be  what  nine- tenths  of  the  newspaper 
critics  invariably  assume  it  to  be.  I  never  thought 
it  was  a  sort  of  Anglo-Saxon  colony,  knowing  that 
it  was  more  and  more  thronged  with  crowds  of  very 
different  colonists.  During  the  war  I  felt  that  the 
very  worst  propaganda  for  the  Allies  was  the  propa 
ganda  for  the  Anglo-Saxons.  I  tried  to  point  out  that  in 
one  way  America  is  nearer  to  Europe  than  England  is. 
if  she  is  not  nearer  to  Bohemia,  she  is  nearer  to  Bohe 
mians.  In  my  New  York  hotel  the  head  waiter  in  the  di 
ning-room  was  a  Bohemian ;  the  head  waiter  in  the  grill 
room  was  a  Bulgar.  Americans  have  nationalities  at  the 
end  of  the  street  which  for  us  are  at  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
I  did  my  best  to  persuade  my  countrymen  not  to  appeal  to 
the  American  as  if  he  were  a  rather  dowdy  Englishman, 
who  had  been  rusticating  in  the  provinces  and  had  not 
heard  the  latest  news  about  the  town.  I  shall  record  later 
some  of  those  arresting  realities  which  the  traveller  does 
not  expect ;  and  which,  in  some  cases  I  fear,  he  actually 
does  not  see  because  he  does  not  expect.  I  shall  try  to 
do  justice  to  the  psychology  of  what  Mr.  Belloc  has  called 
'Eye-Openers  in  Travel/  But  there  are  some  things 
about  America  that  a  man  ought  to  see  even  with  his 
eyes  shut.  One  is  that  a  state  that  came  into  existence 
solely  through  its  repudiation  and  abhorrence  of  the 
British  Crown  is  not  likely  to  be  a  respectful  copy  of 
the  British  Constitution.  Another  is  that  the  chief 
mark  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is  something 


i6  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

that  is  not  only  absent  from  the  British  Constitution, 
but  something  which  all  our  constitutionalists  have  in 
variably  thanked  God,  with  the  j  oiliest  boasting  and 
bragging,  that  they  had  kept  out  of  the  British  Consti 
tution.  It  is  the  thing  called  abstraction  or  academic 
logic.  It  is  the  thing  which  such  jolly  people  call  theory ; 
and  which  those  who  can  practice  it  call  thought.  And 
the  theory  or  thought  is  the  very  last  to  which  English 
people  are  accustomed,  either  by  their  social  structure 
or  their  traditional  teaching.  It  is  the  theory  of  equality. 
It  is  the  pure  classic  conception  that  no  man  must  aspire 
to  be  anything  more  than  a  citizen,  and  that  no  man 
should  endure  to  be  anything  less.  It  is  by  no  means 
especially  intelligible  to  an  Englishman,  who  tends  at 
his  best  to  the  virtues  of  the  gentleman  and  at  his  worst 
to  the  vices  of  the  snob.  The  idealism  of  England,  or  if 
you  will  the  romance  of  England,  has  not  been  primarily 
the  romance  of  the  citizen.  But  the  idealism  of 
A'merica,  we  may  safely  say,  still  revolves  entirely  round 
the  citizen  and  his  romance.  The  realities  are  quite  an 
other  matter,  and  we  shall  consider*  in  its  place  the  ques 
tion  of  whether  the  ideal  will  be  able  to  shape  the  realities 
or  will  merely  be  beaten  shapeless  by  them.  The  ideal 
is  besieged  by  inequalities  of  the  most  towering  and  insane 
description  in  the  industrial  and  economic  field.  It  may 
be  devoured  by  modern  capitalism,  perhaps  the  worst 
inequality  that  ever  existed  among  men.  Of  all  that  we 
shall  speak  later.  But  citizenship  is  still  the  American 
ideal;  there  is  an  army  of  actualities  opposed  to  that 
ideal ;  but  there  is  no  ideal  opposed  to  that  ideal.  Ameri 
can  plutocracy  has  never  got  itself  respected  like  English 
aristocracy.  Citizenship  is  the  American  ideal;  and  it 
has  never  been  the  English  ideal.  But  it  is  surely  an  ideal 


WHAT  IS  AMERICA?  17 

that  may  stir  some  imaginative  generosity  and  respect 
in  an  Englishman,  if  he  will  condescend  to  be  also  a  man. 
In  this  vision  of  moulding  many  peoples  into  the  visible 
image  of  the  citizen,  he  may  see  a  spiritual  adventure 
which  he  can  admire  from  the  outside  at  least  as  much  as 
he  admires  the  valour  of  the  Moslems  and  much  more 
than  he  admires  the  virtue  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He 
need  not  set  himself  to  develop  equality,  but  he  need  not 
set  himself  to  misunderstand  it.  He  may  at  least  under 
stand  what  Jefferson  and  Lincoln  meant,  and  he  may  pos 
sibly  find  some  assistance  in  this  task  by  reading  what 
they  said.  He  may  realise  that  equality  is  not  some«crude 
fairy  tale  about  all  men  being  equally  tall  or  equally 
tricky;  which  we  not  only  cannot  believe  but  cannot 
believe  in  anybody  believing.  It  is  an  absolute  of  morals 
by  which  all  men  have  a  value  invariable  and  indestruct 
ible  and  a  dignity  as  intangible  as  death.  He  may  at 
least  be  a  philosopher  and  see  that  equality  is  an  idea; 
and  not  merely  one  of  these  soft-headed  sceptics  who, 
having  risen  by  low  tricks  to  high  places,  drink  bad 
champagne  in  tawdry  hotel  lounges,  and  tell  each  other 
twenty  times  over,  with  unwearied  iteration,  that  equal 
ity  is  an  illusion. 

In  truth  it  is  inequality  that  is  the  illusion.  The 
extreme  disproportion  between  men,  that  we  seem  to 
see  in  life,  is  a  thing  of  changing  lights  and  lengthening 
shadows,  a  twilight  full  of  fancies  and  distortions.  We 
find  a  man  famous  and  cannot  live  long  enough  to  find 
him  forgotten ;  we  see  a  race  dominant  and  cannot  linger 
to  see  it  decay.  It  is  the  experience  of  men  that  always 
returns  to  the  equality  of  men;  it  is  the  average  that 
ultimately  justifies  the  average  man.  It  is  when  men 
have  seen  and  suffered  much  and  come  at  the  end  of 


i8  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

more  elaborate  experiments,  that  they  see  men  under  an 
equal  light  of  death  and  daily  laughter;  and  none  the  less 
mysterious  for  being  many.  Nor  is  it  in  vain  that  these 
Western  democrats  have  sought  the  blazonry  of  their 
flag  in  that  great  multitude  of  immortal  lights  that  en 
dure  behind  the  fires  we  see,  and  gathered  them  into  the 
corner  of  Old  Glory  whose  ground  is  like  the  glittering 
night.  'For  veritably,  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the 
symbol,  suns  and  moons  and  meteors  pass  and  fill  our 
skies  with  a  fleeting  and  almost  theatrical  conflagration; 
and  wherever  the  old  shadow  stoops  upon  the  earth,  the 
stars  return. 


A   MEDITATION    IN   A   NEW    YORK   HOTEL 

ALL  this  must  begin  with  an  apology  and  not  an 
apologia.  When  I  went  wandering  about  the 
States  disguised  as  a  lecturer,  I  was  well  aware 
that  1  was  not  sufficiently  well  disguised  to  be  a  spy.  I 
was  even  in  the  worst  possible  position  to  be  a  sight-seer. 
A  lecturer  to  American  audiences  can  hardly  be  in  the 
holiday  mood  of  a  sight-seer.  It  is  rather  the  au 
dience  that  is  sight-seeing;  even  if  it  is  seeing  a 
rather  melancholy  sight.  Some  say  that  people  come 
to  see  the  lecturer  and  not  to  hear  him;  in  which  case 
it  seems  rather  a  pity  that  he  should  disturb  and  dis 
tress  their  minds  with  a  lecture.  He  might  merely  ex 
hibit  himself  on  a  stand  or  platform  for  a  stipulated 
sum;  or  be  exhibited  like  a  monster  in  a  menagerie. 
The  circus  elephant  is  not  expected  to  make  a  speech. 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  the  circus  elephant  is 
not  allowed  to  write  a  book.  His  impressions  of 
travel  would  be  somewhat  sketchy  and  perhaps  a  little 
over-specialised.  In  merely  travelling  from  circus  to 
circus  he  would,  so  to  speak,  move  in  rather  narrow 
circles.  Jumbo  the  great  elephant  (with  whom  I  am 
hardly  so  ambitious  as  to  compare  myself),  before  he 
eventually  went  to  the  Barnum  show,  passed  a  consider 
able  and  I  trust  happy  part  of  his  life  in  the  Regent's 
Park.  But  if  he  had  written  a  book  on  England, 
founded  on  his  impressions  of  the  Zoo,  it  might  have 
been  a  little  disproportionate  and  even  misleading  in  its 
version  of  the  flora  and  fauna  of  that  country.  He 
might  imagine  that  lions  and  leopards  were  commoner 

19 


20  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

than  they  are  in  our  hedgerows  and  country  lanes,  or 
that  the  head  and  neck  of  a  giraffe  was  as  native  to  our 
landscapes  as  a  village  spire.  And  that  is  why  I  apolo 
gise  in  anticipation  for  a  probable  lack  of  proportion  in 
this  work.  Like  the  elephant,  I  may  have  seen  too 
much  of  a  special  enclosure  where  a  special  sort  of  lions 
are  gathered  together.  I  may  exaggerate  the  territorial, 
as  distinct  from  the  vertical  space  occupied  by  the  spirit 
ual  giraffe ;  for  the  giraffe  may  surely  be  regarded  as  an 
example  of  Uplift,  and  is  even,  in  a  manner  of  speaking, 
a  high-brow.  Above  all,  I  shall  probably  make  generali 
sations  that  are  much  too  general;  and  are  insufficient 
through  being  exaggerative.  To  this  sort  of  doubt  all 
my  impressions  are  subject;  and  among  them  the 
negative  generalisation  with  which  I  shall  begin  this 
rambling  meditation  on  American  hotels. 

In  all  my  American  wanderings  I  never  saw  such  a 
thing  as  an  inn.  They  may  exist ;  but  they  do  not  arrest 
the  traveller  upon  every  road  as  they  do  in  England  and 
in  Europe.  The  saloons  no  longer  existed  when  I  was 
there,  owing  to  the  recent  reform  which  restricted  intoxi 
cants  to  the  wealthier  classes.  But  we  feel  that  the 
saloons  have  been  there;  if  one  maay  so  express  it,  their 
absence  is  still  present.  They  remain  in  the  structure  of 
the  streets  and  the  idiom  of  the  language.  But  the 
saloons  were  not  inns.  If  they  had  been  inns,  it  would 
have  been  far  harder  even  for  the  power  of  modern 
plutocracy  to  root  them  out.  There  will  be  a  very 
different  chase  when  the  White  Hart  is  hunted  to  the 
forests  or  when  the  Red  Lion  turns  to  bay.  But  people 
could  not  feel  about  the  American  saloon  as  they  will 
feel  about  the  English  inns.  They  could  not  feel  that 
the  Prohibitionist,  that  vulgar  chucker-out,  was  chucking 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEL       21 

Chaucer  out  of  the  Tabard  and  Shakespeare  out  of  the 
Mermaid.  In  justice  to  the  American  Prohibitionists  it 
must  be  realised  that  they  were  not  doing  quite  such 
desecration;  and  that  many  of  them  felt  the  saloon  a 
specially  poisonous  sort  of  place.  They  did  feel  that 
drinking-places  were  used  only  as  drug-shops.  So  they 
have  effected  the  great  reconstruction,  by  which  it  will  be 
necessary  to  use  only  drug-shops  as  drinking-places. 
But  I  am  not  dealing  here  with  the  problem  of  Prohi 
bition  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  involved  in  the  statement 
that  the  saloons  were  in  no  sense  inns.  Secondly,  of 
course,  there  are  the  hotels.  There  are  indeed.  There 
are  hotels  toppling  to  the  stars,  hotels  covering  the  acre 
age  of  villages,  hotels  in  multitudinous  number  like  a 
mob  of  Babylonian  or  Assyrian  monuments;  but  the 
hotels  also  are  not  inns. 

Broadly  speaking,  there  is  only  one  hotel  in  America. 
The  pattern  of  it,  which  is  a  very  rational  pattern,  is 
repeated  in  cities  as  remote  from  each  other  as  the 
capitals  of  European  empires.  You  may  find  that  hotel 
rising  among  the  red  blooms  of  the  warm  spring  woods 
of  Nebraska,  or  whitened  with  Canadian  snows  near  the 
eternal  noise  of  Niagara.  And  before  touching  on  this 
solid  and  simple  pattern  itself,  I  may  remark  that  the  same 
system  of  symmetry  runs  through  all  the  details  of  the 
interior.  As  one  hotel  is  like  another  hotel,  so  one  hotel 
floor  is  like  another  hotel  floor.  If  the  passage  outside 
your  bedroom  door,  or  hallway  as  it  is  called,  contains, 
let  us  say,  a  small  table  with  a  green  vase  and  a  stuffed 
flamingo,  or  some  trifle  of  the  sort,  you  may  be  perfectly 
icertain  that  there  is  exactly  the  same  table,  vase,  and 
flamingo  on  every  one  of  the  thirty-two  landings  of  that 
towering  habitation.  This  is  where  it  differs  most 


22  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

perhaps  from  the  crooking  landings  and  unexpected 
levels  of  the  old  English  inns,  even  when  they  call  them 
selves  hotels.  To  me  there  was  something  weird,  like  a 
magic  multiplication,  in  the  exquisite  sameness  of  these 
suites.  It  seemed  to  suggest  the  still  atmosphere  of 
some  eerie  psychological  story.  I  once  myself  enter 
tained  the  notion  of  a  story,  in  which  a  man  was  to  be 
prevented  from  entering  his  house  (the  scene  of  some 
crime  or  calamity)  by  people  who  painted  and  furnished 
the  next  house  to  look  exactly  like  it;  the  assimilation 
going  to  the  most  fantastic  lengths,  such  as  altering  the 
numbering  of  houses  in  the  street.  I  came  to  America 
and  found  an  hotel  fitted  and  upholstered  throughout  for 
the  enactment  of  my  phantasmal  fraud.  I  offer  the 
skeleton  of  my  story  with  all  humility  to  some  of  the 
admirable  lady  writers  of  detective  stories  in  America,  to 
Miss  Carolyn  Wells,  or  Miss  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart,  or 
Mrs.  A.  K.  Green  of  the  unforgotten  Leavenworth  Case. 
Surely  it  might  be  possible  for  the  unsophisticated  Nim- 
rod  K.  Moose,  of  Yellow  Dog  Flat,  to  come  to  New 
York  and  be  entangled  somehow  in  this  net  of  repetitions 
or  recurrences.  Surely  something  tells  me  that  his 
beautiful  daughter,  the  Rose  of  Red  Murder  Gulch,  might 
seek  for  him  in  vain  amid  the  apparently  unmistakable 
surroundings  of  the  thirty-second  floor,  while  he  was 
being  quietly  butchered  by  the  floor-clerk  on  the  thirty- 
third  floor,  an  agent  of  the  Green  Claw  (that  formidable 
organisation)  ;  and  all  because  the  two  floors  looked 
exactly  alike  to  the  virginal  Western  eye.  The  original 
point  of  my  own  story  was  that  the  man  to  be  entrapped 
walked  into  his  own  house  after  all,  in  spite  of  it  being 
differently  painted  and  numbered,  simply  because  he  was 
absent-minded  and  used  to  taking  a  certain  number  of 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEL       23 

mechanical  steps.  This  would  not  work  in  a  hotel; 
because  a  lift  has  no  habits.  It  is  typical  of  the  real 
tameness  of  machinery,  that  even  when  we  talk  of  a  man 
turning  mechanically  we  only  talk  metaphorically;  for  it 
is  something  that  a  mechanism  cannot  do.  But  I  think 
there  is  only  one  real  objection  to  my  story  of  Mr.  Moose 
in  the  New  York  hotel.  And  that  is  unfortunately  a 
rather  fatal  one.  It  is  that  far  away  in  the  remote  des 
olation  of  Yellow  Dog,  among  those  outlying  and  out 
landish  rocks  that  almost  seem  to  rise  beyond  the  sunset, 
there  is  undoubtedly  an  hotel  of  exactly  the  same  sort, 
with  all  its  floors  exactly  the  same. 

Anyhow  the  general  plan  of  the  American  hotel  is  com 
monly  the  same,  and,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  a  very  sound 
one  so  far  as  it  goes.  When  I  first  went  into  one  of  the 
big  New  York  hotels,  the  first  impression  was  certainly 
its  bigness.  It  was  called  the  Biltmore ;  and  I  wondered 
how  many  national  humorists  had  made  the  obvious  com 
ment  of  wishing  they  had  built  less.  But  it  was  not 
merely  the  Babylonian  size  and  scale  of  such  things,  it 
was  the  way  in  which  they  are  used.  They  are  used  al 
most  as  public  streets,  or  rather  as  public  squares.  My 
first  impression  was  that  I  was  in  some  sort  of  high  street 
or  market-place  during  a  carnival  or  a  revolution.  True, 
the  people  looked  rather  rich  for  a  revolution  and  rather 
grave  for  a  carnival;  but  they  were  congested  in  great 
crowds  that  moved  slowly  like  people  passing  through  an 
overcrowded  railway  station.  Even  in  the  dizzy  heights 
of  such  a  sky-scraper  there  could  not  possibly  be  room  for 
all  those  people  to  sleep  in  the  hotel,  or  even  to  dine  in  it. 
And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  did  nothing  whatever  ex 
cept  drift  into  it  and  drift  out  again.  Most  of  them  had 
no  more  to  do  with  the  hotel  than  I  have  with  Bucking- 


24  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ham  Palace.  I  have  never  been  in  Buckingham  Palace, 
and  I  have  very  seldom,  thank  God,  been  in  the  big  hotels 
of  this  type  that  exist  in  London  or  P'aris.  But  I  cannot 
believe  that  mobs  are  perpetually  pouring  through  the 
Hotel  Cecil  or  the  Savoy  in  this  fashion,  calmly  coming 
in  at  one  door  and  going  out  of  the  other.  But  this  fact 
is  part  of  the  fundamental  structure  of  the  American 
hotel ;  it  is  built  upon  a  compromise  Jthat  makes  it  possible. 
The  whole  of  the  lower  floor  is  thrown  open  to  the  public 
streets  and  treated  as  a  public  square.  But  above  it  and 
all  round  it  runs  another  floor  in  the  form  of  a  sort  of 
deep  gallery,  furnished  more  luxuriously  and  looking 
down  on  the  moving  mobs  beneath.  No  one  is  allowed 
on  this  floor  except  the  guests  or  clients  of  the  hotel. 
As  I  have  been  one  of  them  myself,  I  trust  it  is  not  un 
sympathetic  to  compare  them  to  active  anthropoids  who 
can  climb  trees,  and  so  look  down  in  safety  on  the  herds 
or  packs  of  wilder  animals  wandering  and  prowling 
below.  Of  course  there  are  modifications  of  architect 
ural  plan,  but  they  are  generally  approximations  to  it; 
it  is  the  plan  that  seems  to  suit  the  social  life  of  the 
American  cities.  There  is  generally  something  like  a 
ground  floor  that  is  more  public,  a  half-floor  or  gallery 
above  that  is  more  private,  and  above  that  the  bulk  of 
the  block  of  bedrooms,  the  huge  hive  with  its  innumer 
able  and  identical  cells. 

The  ladder  of  ascent  in  this  tower  is  of  course  the  lift, 
or,  as  it  is  called,  the  elevator.  With  all  that  we  hear  o£ 
American  hustle  and  hurry,  it  is  rather  strange  that 
Americans  seem  to  like  more  than  we  do  to  linger  upon 
long  words.  And  indeed  there  is  an  element  of  delay  in 
their  diction  and  spirit,  very  little  understood,  which  I 
may  discuss  elsewhere.  Anyhow  they  say  elevator  when 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEL       25 

we  say  lift,  just  as  they  say  automobile  when  we  say 
motor  and  stenographer  when  we  say  typist,  or  sometimes 
(by  a  slight  confusion)  typewriter.  Which  reminds  me 
of  another  story  that  never  existed,  about  a  man  who  was 
accused  of  having  murdered  and  dismembered  his  secre 
tary  when  he  had  only  taken  his  typing  machine  to  pieces ; 
but  we  must  not  dwell  on  these  digressions.  The  Ameri 
cans  may  have  another  reason  for  giving  long  and  cere 
monious  titles  to  the  lift.  When  first  I  came  among  them 
I  had  a  suspicion  that  they  possessed  and  practised  a  new 
and  secret  religion,  which  was  the  cult  of  the  elevator. 
I  fancied  they  worshipped  the  lift,  or  at  any  rate  wor 
shipped  in  the  lift.  The  details  or  data  of  this  suspicion 
it  were  now  vain  to  collect,  as  I  have  regretfully  aban 
doned  it,  except  in  so  far  as  they  illustrate  the  social  prin 
ciples  underlying  the  structural  plan  of  the  building. 
Now  an  American  gentleman  invariably  takes  off  his  hat 
in  the  lift.  He  does  not  take  off  his  hat  in  the  hotel,  even 
if  it  is  crowded  with  ladies.  But  he  always  so  salutes  a 
lady  in  the  elevator ;  and  this  marks  the  difference  of  at 
mosphere.  The  lift  is  a  room,  but  the  hotel  is  a  street. 
But  during  my  first  delusion,  of  course,  I  assumed  that  he 
uncovered  in  this  tiny  temple  merely  because  he  was  in 
church.  There  is  something  about  the  very  word  eleva 
tor  that  expresses  a  great  deal  of  his  vague  but  idealistic 
religion.  Perhaps  that  flying  chapel  will  eventually  be 
ritualistically  decorated  like  a  chapel ;  possibly  with  a  sym 
bolic  scheme  of  wings.  Perhaps  a  brief  religious  service 
will  be  held  in  the  elevator  as  it  ascends ;  in  a  few  well- 
chosen  words  touching  the  Utmost  for  the  Highest. 
Possibly  he  would  consent  even  to  call  the  elevator  a  lift, 
if  he  could  call  it  an  uplift.  There  would  be  no  diffi 
culty,  except  what  I  cannot  but  regard  as  the  chief  moral 


26  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

problem  of  all  optimistic  modernism.  I  mean  the  diffi 
culty  of  imagining  a  lift  which  is  free  to  go  up,  if  it 
is  not  also  free  to  go  down. 

I  think  I  knowT  my  American  friends  and  acquaint 
ances  too  well  to  apologise  for  any  levity  in  these  illus 
trations.  Americans  make  fun  of  their  own  institutions ; 
and  their  own  journalism  is  full  of  such  fanciful  conjec 
tures.  The  tall  building  is  itself  artistically  akin  to  the 
tall  story.  The  very  word  skyscraper  is  an  admirable 
example  of  an  American  lie.  But  I  can  testify  quite 
as  eagerly  to  the  solid  and  sensible  advantages  of  the 
symmetrical  hotel.  It  is  not  only  a  pattern  of  vases 
and  stuffed  flamingoes;  it  is  also  an  equally  accurate 
pattern  of  cupboards  and  baths.  It  is  a  dignified  and 
humane  custom  to  have  a  bathroom  attached  to  every 
bedroom ;  and  my  impulse  to  sing  the  praises  of  it  brought 
me  once  at  least  into  a  rather  quaint  complication.  I 
think  it  was  in  the  city  of  Dayton;  anyhow  I  remember 
there  was  a  Laundry  Convention  going  on  in  the  same 
hotel,  in  a  room  very  patriotically  and  properly  festooned 
with  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  doubtless  full  of  promise 
for  the  future  of  laundering.  I  was  interviewed  on  the 
roof,  within  earshot  of  this  debate,  and  may  have  been 
the  victim  of  some  association  or  confusion;  anyhow, 
after  answering  the  usual  questions  about  Labour,  the 
League  of  Nations,  the  length  of  ladies'  dresses,  and 
other  great  matters,  I  took  refuge  in  a  rhapsody  of  warm 
and  well-deserved  praise  of  American  bathrooms.  The 
editor,  I  understand,  running  a  gloomy  eye  down  the 
column  of  his  contributor's  'story,'  and  seeing  nothing 
but  metaphysical  terms  such  as  justice,  freedom,  the  ab 
stract  disapproval  of  sweating,  swindling,  and  the  like, 
paused  at  last  upon  the  ablutionary  allusion,  and  his  eye 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEU       27 

brightened.  'That's  the  only  copy  in  the  whole  thing/ 
he  said,  'A  Bath-Tub  in  Every  Home/  So  these  words 
appeared  in  enormous  letters  above  my  portrait  in  the 
paper.  It  will  be  noted  that,  like  many  things  that 
practical  men  make  a  great  point  of,  they  miss  the  point. 
What  I  had  commended  as  new  and  national  was  a 
bathroom  in  every  bedroom.  Even  feudal  and  moss- 
grown  England  is  not  entirely  ignorant  of  an  occasional 
bath-tub  in  the  home.  But  what  gave  me  great  joy  was 
what  followed.  I  discovered  with  delight  that  many 
people,  glancing  rapidly  at  my  portrait  with  its  prodig 
ious  legend,  imagined  that  it  was  a  commercial  advertise 
ment,  and  that  I  was  a  very  self -advertising  commercial 
traveller.  When  I  walked  about  the  streets,  I  was  sup 
posed  to  be  travelling  in  bath-tubs.  Consider  the  caption 
of  the  portrait,  and  you  will  see  how  similar  it  is  to  the 
true  commercial  slogan :  We  offer  a  Bath-Tub  in  Every 
Home/  And  this  charming  error  was  doubtless  clinched 
by  the  fact  that  I  had  been  found  haunting  the  outer 
courts  of  the  temple  of  the  ancient  guild  of  Lavenders. 
I  never  knew  how  many  shared  the  impression;  I  regret 
to  say  that  I  only  traced  it  with  certainty  in  two  individ 
uals.  But  I  understand  that  it  included  the  idea  that  I 
had  come  to  the  town  to  attend  the  Laundry  Convention, 
and  had  made  an  eloquent  speech  to  that  senate,  no  doubt 
exhibiting  my  tubs. 

vSuch  was  the  penalty  of  too  passionate  and  unre 
strained  an  admiration  for  American  bathrooms;  yet 
the  connection  of  ideas,  however  inconsequent,  does  cover 
the  part  of  social  practice  for  which  these  American 
institutions  can  really  be  praised.  About  everything  like 
laundry  or  hot  and  cold  water  there  is  not  only  organ 
isation,  but  what  does  not  always  or  perhaps  often  go  with 


28  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

it,  efficiency.  Americans  are  particular  about  these  things 
of  dress  and  decorum;  and  it  is  a  virtue  which  I  very 
seriously  recognise,  though  I  find  it  very  hard  to  emulate. 
But  with  them  it  is  a  virtue ;  it  is  not  a  mere  convention, 
still  less  a  mere  fashion.  It  is  really  related  to  human 
dignity  rather  than  to  social  superiority.  The  really 
glorious  thing  about  the  American  is  that  he  does  not 
dress  like  a  gentleman;  he  dresses  like  a  citizen  or  a 
civilised  man.  Puritan  particularity  on  certain  points 
is  really  detachable  from  any  definite  social  ambitions; 
these  things  are  not  a  part  of  getting  into  society  but 
merely  of  keeping  out  of  savagery.  Those  millions 
and  millions  of  middling  people,  that  huge  middle  class 
especially  of  the  Middle  West,  are  not  near  enough  to 
any  aristocracy  even  to  be  sham  aristocrats,  or  to  be  real 
snobs.  But  their  standards  are  secure;  and  though  I 
do  not  really  travel  in  a  bath-tub,  or  believe  in  the  bath 
tub  philosophy  and  religion,  I  will  not  on  this  matter 
recoil  misanthropically  from  them:  I  prefer  the  tub  of 
Dayton  to  the  tub  of  Diogenes.  On  these  points  there 
is  really  something  a  million  times  better  than  efficiency, 
and  that  is  something  like  equality. 

In  short,  the  American  hotel  is  not  America;  but  it  is 
American.  In  some  respects  it  is  as  American  as  the 
English  inn  is  English.  And  it  is  symbolic  of  that 
society  in  this  among  other  things:  that  it  does  tend 
too  much  to  uniformity;  but  that  that  very  uniformity 
disguises  not  a  little  natural  dignity.  The  old  Romans 
boasted  that  their  republic  was  a  nation  of  kings.  If 
we  really  walked  abroad  in  such  a  kingdom,  we  might 
very  well  grow  tired  of  the  sight  of  a  crowd  of  kings, 
of  every  man  with  a  gold  crown  on  his  head  or  an  ivory 
sceptre  in  his  hand.  But  it  is  arguable  that  we  ought  not 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEU       29 

to  grow  tired  of  the  repetition  of  crowns  and  sceptres, 
any  more  than  of  the  repetition  of  flowers  and  stars. 
The  whole  imaginative  effort  of  Walt  Whitman  was  really 
an  effort  to  absorb  and  animate  these  multitudinous 
modern  repetitions;  and  Walt  Whitman  would  be  quite 
capable  of  including  in  his  lyric  litany  of  optimism  a 
list  of  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  identical  bath 
rooms.  I  do  not  sneer  at  the  generous  effort  of  the 
giant ;  though  I  think,  when  all  is  said,  that  it  is  criticism 
of  modern  machinery  that  the  effort  should  be  gigantic 
as  well  as  generous. 

While  there  is  so  much  repetition  there  is  little  repose. 
It  is  the  pattern  of  a  kaleidoscope  rather  than  a  wall 
paper;  a  pattern  of  figures  running  and  even  leaping 
like  the  figures  in  a  zoetrope.  But  even  in  the  groups 
where  there  was  no  hustle  there  was  often  something 
of  homelessness.  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  they  were 
not  dining  at  home;  but  rather  that  they  were  not  at 
home  even  when  dining,  and  dining  at  their  favourite 
hotel.  They  would  frequently  start  up  and  dart  from 
the  room  at  a  summons  from  the  telephone.  It  may 
have  been  fanciful,  but  I  could  not  help  feeling  a  breath 
of  home,  as  from  a  flap  or  flutter  of  St.  George's 
cross,  when  I  first  sat  down  in  a  Canadian  hostelry,  and 
read  the  announcement  that  no  such  telephonic  or  other 
summonses  were  allowed  in  the  dining-room.  It  may 
have  been  a  coincidence,  and  there  may  be  American 
hotels  with  this  merciful  proviso  and  Canadian  hotels 
without  it;  but  the  thing  was  symbolic  even  if  it  was  not 
evidential.  I  felt  as  if  I  stood  indeed  upon  English 
soil,  in  a  place  where  people  liked  to  have  their  meals  in 
peace. 

The  process  of  the  summons  is  called  'paging,'  and 


30  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

consists  of  sending  a  little  boy  with  a  large  voice  through 
all  the  halls  and  corridors  of  the  building,  making  them 
resound  with  a  name.  The  custom  is  common,  of  course, 
in  clubs  and  hotels  even  in  England ;  but  in  England  it  is 
a  mere  whisper  compared  with  the  wail  with  which  the 
American  page  repeats  the  formula  of  'Calling  Mr.  So 
and  So/  I  remember  a  particularly  crowded  parterre  in 
the  somewhat  smoky  and  oppressive  atmosphere  of 
Pittsburg,  through  which  wandered  a  youth  with  a  voice 
the  like  of  which  I  have  never  heard  in  the  land  of  the 
living,  a  voice  like  the  cry  of  a  lost  spirit,  saying  again 
and  again  for  ever,  'Carling  Mr.  Anderson.'  One  felt 
that  he  never  would  find  Mr.  Anderson.  Perhaps  there 
never  had  been  any  Mr.  Anderson  to  be  found.  Perhaps 
he  and  every  one  else  wandered  in  an  abyss  of  bottom 
less  scepticism;  and  he  was  but  the  victim  of  one  out  of 
numberless  nightmares  of  eternity,  as  he  wandered  a 
shadow  with  shadows  and  wailed  by  impassable  streams. 
This  is  not  exactly  my  philosophy,  but  I  feel  sure  it  was 
his.  And  it  is  a  mood  that  may  frequently  visit  the 
mind  in  the  centres  of  highly  active  and  successful  in 
dustrial  civilisation. 

Such  are  the  first  idle  impressions  of  the  great  Ameri 
can  hotel,  gained  by  sitting  for  the  first  time  in  its  gallery 
and  gazing  on  its  drifting  crowds  with  thoughts  equally 
drifting.  The  first  impression  is  of  something  enormous 
and  rather  unnatural,  an  impression  that  is  gradually 
tempered  by  experience  of  the  kindliness  and  even  the 
tameness  of  so  much  of  that  social  order.  But  I  should 
not  be  recording  the  sensations  with  sincerity,  if  I  did  not 
touch  in  passing  the  note  of  something  unearthly  about 
ithat  vast  system  to  an  insular  traveller  who  sees  it  for  the 
first  time.  It  is  as  if  fre  were  wandering  in  another 


MEDITATION  IN  A  NEW  YORK  HOTEL       31 

world  among  the  fixed  stars;  or  worse  still,  in  an  ideal 
Utopia  of  the  future. 

Yet  I  am  not  certain;  and  perhaps  the  best  of  all  news 
is  that  nothing  is  really  new.  I  sometimes  have  a  fancy 
that  many  of  these  new  things  in  new  countries  are  but 
the  resurrections  of  old  things  which  have  been  wickedly 
killed  or  stupidly  stunted  in  old  countries.  I  have  looked 
over  the  sea  of  little  tables  in  some  light  and  airy  open- 
air  cafe;  and  my  thoughts  have  gone  back  to  the  plain 
wooden  bench  and  wooden  table  that  stands  solitary  and 
weather-stained  outside  so  many  neglected  English  inns. 
We  talk  of  experimenting  in  the  French  cafe,  as  of  some 
fresh  and  almost  impudent  innovation.  But  our  fathers 
had  the  French  cafe,  in  the  sense  of  the  free-and-easy 
table  in  the  sun  and  air.  The  only  difference  was  that 
French  democracy  was  allowed  to  develop  its  cafe,  or 
multiply  its  tables,  while  English  plutocracy  prevented 
any  such  popular  growth.  Perhaps  there  are  other  ex 
amples  of  old  types  and  patterns,  lost  in  the  old  oligarchy 
and  saved  in  the  new  democracies.  I  am  haunted  with 
a  hint  that  the  new  structures  are  not  so  very  new :  and 
that  they  remind  me  of  something  very  old.  As  I  look 
from  the  balcony  floors  the  crowds  seem  to  float  away 
and  the  colours  to  soften  and  grow  pale,  and  I  know 
I  am  in  one  of  the  simplest  and  most  ancestral  of 
human  habitations.  I  am  looking  down  from  the  old 
wooden  gallery  upon  the  courtyard  of  an  inn.  This 
new  architectural  model,  which  I  have  described,  is  after 
all  one  of  the  oldest  European  models,  now  neglected  in 
Europe  and  especially  in  England.  It  was  the  theatre 
in  which  were  enchanted  innumerable  picaresque  com 
edies  and  romantic  plays,  with  figures  ranging  from 
Sancho  Panza  to  Sam  Weller.  It  served  as  the  appa- 


32  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ratus,  like  some  gigantic  toy  set  up  in  bricks  and  timber, 
for  the  ancient  and  perhaps  eternal  game  of  tennis.  The 
very  terms  of  the  original  game  were  taken  from  the 
inn  courtyard,  and  the  players  scored  accordingly  as  they 
hit  the  buttery-hatch  or  the  roof.  Singular  speculations 
hover  in  my  mind  as  the  scene  darkens  and  the  quad 
rangle  below  begins  to  empty  in  the  last  hours  of  night. 
Some  day  perhaps  this  huge  structure  will  be  found 
standing  in  a  solitude  like  a  skeleton;  and  it  will  be  the 
skeleton  of  the  Spotted  Dog  or  the  Blue  Boar.  It  will 
wither  and  decay  until  it  is  worthy  at  last  to  be  a  tavern. 
I  do  not  know  whether  men  will  play  tennis  on  its  ground 
"floor,  with  various  scores  and  prizes  for  hitting  the  elec 
tric  fan,  or  the  lift,  6Y  the  head  waiter.  Perhaps  the  very 
words  will  only  remain  as  part  of  some  such  rustic 
game.  Perhaps  the  electric  fan  will  no  longer  be  elec 
tric  and  the  elevator  will  no  longer  elevate,  and  the 
waiter  will  only  wait  to  be  hit.  But  at  least  it  is  only 
by  the  decay  of  modern  plutocracy,  which  seems  already 
to  have  begun,  that  the  secret  of  the  structure  even  of 
this  plutocratic  palace  can  stand  revealed.  And  after 
long  years,  when  its  lights  are  extinguished  and  only  the 
long  shadows  inhabit  its  halls  and  vestibules,  there  may 
come  a  new  noise  like  thunder ;  of  D'Artagnan  knocking 
at  the  door. 


A   MEDITATION   IN   BROADWAY 

WHEN  I  had  looked  at  the  lights  of  Broad 
way  by  night,  I  made  to  my  American 
friends  an  innocent  remark  that  seemed  for 
some  reason  to  amuse  them.  I  had  looked,  not  without 
joy,  at  that  long  kaleidoscope  of  coloured  lights  arranged 
in  large  letters  and  sprawling  trade-marks,  advertising 
everything,  from  pork  to  pianos,  through  the  agency 
of  the  two  most  vivid  and  most  mystical  of  the  gifts 
of  God;  colour  and  fire.  I  said  to  them,  in  my  simplicity, 
'What  a  glorious  garden  of  wonders  this  would  be, 
to  any  one  who  was  lucky  enough  to  be  unable  to 
read/ 

Here  it  is  but  a  text  for  a  further  suggestion.  But 
let  us  suppose  that  there  does  walk  down  this  flaming 
avenue  a  peasant,  of  the  sort  called  scornfully  an  illiter 
ate  peasant ;  by  those  who  think  that  insisting  on  .people 
reading  and  writing  is  the  best  way  to  keep  out  the  spies 
who  read  in  all  languages  and  the  forgers  who  write 
in  all  hands.  On  this  principle  indeed,  a  peasant  merely 
acquainted  with  things  of  little  practical  use  to  mankind, 
such  as  ploughing,  cutting  wood,  or  growing  vegetables, 
would  very  probably  be  excluded ;  and  it  is  not  for  us  to 
criticise  from  the  outside  the  philosophy  of  those  who 
would  keep  out  the  farmer  and  let  in  the  forger.  But 
let  us  suppose,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
the  peasant  is  walking  under  the  artificial  suns  and 
stars  of  this  tremendous  thoroughfare;  that  he  has  es 
caped  to  the  land  of  liberty  upon  some  general  rumour 
and  romance  of  the  story  of  its  liberation,  but  without 

33 


34  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

being  yet  able  to  understand  the  arbitrary  signs  of  its 
alphabet.  The  soul  of  such  a  man  would  surely  soar 
higher  than  the  sky-scrapers,  and  embrace  a  brotherhood 
broader  than  Broadway.  Realising  that  he  had  arrived 
on  an  evening  of  exceptional  festivity,  worthy  to  be  bla 
zoned  with  all  this  burning  heraldry,  he  would  please 
himself  by  guessing  what  great  proclamation  or  prin 
ciple  of  the  Republic  hung  in  the  sky  like  a  constellation 
or  rippled  across  the  street  like  a  comet.  He  would  be 
shrewd  enough  to  guess  that  the  three  festoons  fringed 
with  fiery  words  of  somewhat  similar  pattern  stood  for 
'Government  of  the  People,  For  the  People,  By  the 
People';  for  it  must  obviously  be  that,  unless  it  were 
'Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity/  His  shrewdness  would 
perhaps  be  a  little  shaken  if  he  knew  that  the  triad  stood 
for  'Tang  Tonic  To-day;  Tang  Tonic  To-morrow; 
Tang  Tonic  All  the  Time.1  He  will  soon  identify  a 
restless  ribbon  of  red  lettering,  red  hot  and  rebellious, 
as  the  saying,  'Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death/  He 
will  fail  to  identify  it  as  the  equally  famous  saying, 
Skyoline  Has  Gout  Beaten  to  a  Frazzle/  Therefore  it 
was  that  I  desired  the  peasant  to  walk  down  that  grove 
of  fiery  trees,  under  all  that  golden  foliage  and  fruits 
like  monstrous  jewels,  as  innocent  as  Adam  before  the 
Fall.  He  would  see  sights  almost  as  fine  as  the  flaming 
sword  or  the  purple  and  peacock  plumage  of  the  sera 
phim;  so  long  as  he  did  not  go  near  the  Tree  of 
Knowledge. 

In  other  words,  if  once  he  went  to  school  it  would  be 
all  up;  and  indeed  I  fear  in  any  case  he  would  soon 
discover  his  error.  If  he  stood  wildly  waving  his  hat 
for  liberty  in  the  middle  of  the  road  as  Chunk  Chutney 
picked  itself  out  in  ruby  stars  upon  the  sky,  he  would 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY          35 

impede  the  excellent  but  extremely  rigid  traffic  system, 
of  New  York.  If  he  fell  on  his  knees  before  a  sapphire 
splendour,  and  began  saying  an  Ave  Maria  under  a 
mistaken  association,  he  would  be  conducted  kindly  but 
firmly  by  an  Irish  policeman  to  a  more  authentic  shrine. 
But  though  the  foreign  simplicity  might  not  long  survive 
in  New  York,  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  such 
foreign  simplicity  cannot  enter  New  York.  He  may  be 
excluded  for  being  illiterate,  but  he  cannot  be  excluded 
for  being  ignorant,  nor  for  being  innocent.  Least  of 
all  can  he  be  excluded  for  being  wiser  in  his  innocence 
than  the  world  in  its  knowledge.  There  is  here  indeed 
more  than  one  distinction  to  be  made.  New  York  is  a 
cosmopolitan  city;  but  it  is  not  a  city  of  cosmopolitans. 
Most  of  the  masses  in  New  York  have  a  nation,  whether 
or  no  it  be  the  nation  to  which  New  York  belongs. 
.Those  who  are  Americanised  are  American,  and  very 
patriotically  American.  Those  who  are  not  thus  nation 
alised  are  not  in  the  least  internationalised.  They 
simply  continue  to  be  themselves;  the  Irish  are  Irish; 
the  Jews  are  Jewish;  and  all  sorts  of  other  tribes  carry 
on  the  traditions  of  remote  European  valleys  almost  un 
touched.  In  short,  there  is  a  sort  of  slender  bridge 
between  their  old  country  and  their  new,  which  they 
either  cross  or  do  not  cross,  but  which  they  seldom  simply 
occupy.  They  are  exiles  or  they  are  citizens ;  there  is  no 
moment  when  they  are  cosmopolitans.  But  very  often 
the  exiles  bring  with  them  not  only  rooted  traditions, 
but  rooted  truths. 

Indeed  it  is  to  a  great  extent  the  thought  of  these 
strange  souls  in  crude  American  garb  that  gives  a 
meaning  to  the  masquerade  of  New  York.  In  the  hotel 
where  I  stayed  the  head  waiter  in  one  room  was  a 


36  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Bohemian;  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  he  called  himself 
a  Bohemian.  I  have  already  protested  sufficiently, 
before  American  audiences,  against  the  pedantry  of 
perpetually  talking  about  Czecho-Slovakia.  I  suggested 
to  my  American  friends  that  the  abandonment  of  the 
word  Bohemian  in  its  historical  sense  might  well  extend 
to  its  literary  and  figurative  sense.  We  might  be 
expected  to  say,  Tm  afraid  Henry  has  got  into  very 
Czecho-Slovakian  habits  lately,'  or  'Don't  bother  to 
dress;  it's  quite  a  Czecho-Slovakian  affair.'  Anyhow 
my  Bohemian  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  non 
sense;  he  called  himself  a  son  of  Bohemia,  and  spoke  as 
such  in  his  criticisms  of  America,  which  were  both  fa 
vourable  and  unfavourable.  He  was  a  squat  man,  with  a 
sturdy  figure  and  a  steady  smile ;  and  his  eyes  were  like 
dark  pools  in  the  depth  of  a  darker  forest;  but  I  do  not 
think  he  had  ever  been  deceived  by  the  lights  of 
Broadway. 

But  I  found  something  like  my  real  innocent  abroad, 
my  real  peasant  among  the  sky-signs,  in  another  part  of 
the  same  establishment.  He  was  a  much  leaner  man, 
equally  dark,  with  a  hook  nose,  hungry  face,  and  fierce 
black  moustaches.  He  also  was  a  waiter,  and  was  in  the 
costume  of  a  waiter,  which  is  a  smarter  edition  of  the 
costume  of  a  lecturer.  As  he  was  serving  me  with  clam 
chowder  or  some  such  thing,  I  fell  into  speech  with  him 
and  he  told  me  he  was  a  Bulgar.  I  said  something  like, 
Tm  afraid  I  donrt  know  as  much  as  I  ought  to  about 
Bulgaria.  I  suppose  most  of  your  people  are  agricul 
tural,  aren't  they?'  He  did  not  stir  an  inch  from  his 
regular  attitude,  but  he  slightly  lowered  his  low  voice 
and  said,  'Yes.  From  the  earth  we  come  and  to  the 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY          37 

earth  we  return;  when  people  get  away  from  that  they 
are  lost/ 

To  hear  such  a  thing  said  by  the  waiter  was  alone  an 
epoch  in  the  life  of  an  unfortunate  writer  of  fantastic 
novels.  To  see  him  clear  away  the  clam  chowder  like 
an  automaton,  and  bring  me  more  iced  water  like  an 
automaton  or  like  nothing  on  earth  except  an  American 
waiter  (for  piling  up  ice  is  the  cold  passion  of  their 
lives),  and  all  this  after  having  uttered  something  so 
dark  and  deep,  so  starkly  incongruous  and  so  startlingly 
true,  was  an  indescribable  thing,  but  very  like  the 
picture  of  the  peasant  admiring  Broadway.  So  he 
passed,  with  his  artificial  clothes  and  manners,  lit  up 
with  all  the  ghastly  artificial  light  of  the  hotel,  and  all 
the  ghastly  artificial  life  of  the  city;  and  his  heart  was 
like  his  own  remote  and  rocky  valley,  where  those  un 
changing  words  were  carved  as  on  a  rock. 

I  do  not  profess  to  discuss  here  at  all  adequately  the 
question  this  raises  about  the  Americanisation  of  the 
Bulgar.  It  has  many  aspects,  of  some  of  which  most 
Englishmen  and  even  some  Americans  are  rather  un 
conscious.  For  one  thing,  a  man  with  so  rugged  a 
loyalty  to  land  could  not  be  Americanised  in  New  York ; 
but  it  is  not  so  certain  that  he  could  not  be  Americanised 
in  America.  We  might  almost  say  that  a  peasantry  is 
hidden  in  the  heart  of  America.  So  far  as  our  impres 
sions  go,  it  is  a  secret.  It  is  rather  an  open  secret ;  cover 
ing  only  some  thousand  square  miles  of  open  prairie. 
But  for  most  of  our  countrymen  it  is  something  invis 
ible,  unimagined,  and  unvisited;  the  simple  truth  that 
where  all  those  acres  are  there  is  agriculture,  and  where 
all  that  agriculture  is  there  is  considerable  tendency 


38  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

towards  distributive  or  decently  equalised  property,  as  in 
a  peasantry.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who 
say  that  the  Bulgar  will  never  be  Americanised,  that  he 
only  comes  to  be  a  waiter  in  America  that  he  may  afford 
to  return  to  be  a  peasant  in  Bulgaria.  I  cannot  decide 
this  issue,  and  indeed  I  did  not  introduce  it  to  this  end. 
I  was  led  to  it  by  a  certain  line  of  reflection  that  runs 
along  the  Great  White  Way,  and  I  will  continue  to 
follow  it.  The  criticism,  if  we  could  put  it  rightly,  not 
only  covers  more  than  New  York  but  more  than  the 
whole  New  World.  Any  argument  against  it  is  quite  as 
valid  against  the  largest  and  richest  cities  of  the  Old 
Wrorld,  against  London  or  Liverpool  or  Frankfort  or 
Belfast.  But  it  is  in  New  York  that  we  see  the  argu 
ment  most  clearly,  because  we  see  the  thing  thus  towering 
into  its  own  turrets  and  breaking  into  its  own  fire 
works. 

I  disagree  with  the  aesthetic  condemnation  of  the 
modern  city  with  its  sky-scrapers  and  sky-signs.  I 
mean  that  which  laments  the  loss  of  beauty  and  its  sac 
rifice  to  utility.  It  seems  to  me  the  very  reverse  of  the 
truth.  Years  ago,  when  people  used  to  say  the  Sal 
vation  Army  doubtless  had  good  intentions,  but  we 
must  all  deplore  its  methods,  I  pointed'  out  that  the  very 
contrary  is  the  case.  Its  method,  the  method  of  drums 
and  democratic  appeal,  is  that  of  the  Franciscans  or 
any  other  march  of  the  Church  Militant.  It  was  pre 
cisely  its  aims  that  were  dubious,  with  their  dissenting 
morality  and  despotic  finance.  It  is  somewhat  the  same 
with  things  like  the  sky-signs  in  Broadway.  The  aes 
thete  must  not  ask  me  to  mingle  my  tears  with  his,  be 
cause  these  things  are  merely  useful  and  ugly.  For  I 
am  not  specially  inclined  to  think  them  ugly;  but  I  am 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY         39 

strongly  inclined  to  think  them  useless.  As  a  matter 
of  art  for  art's  sake,  they  seem  to  me  rather  artistic. 
As  a  form  of  practical  social  work  they  seem  to  me 
stark  stupid  waste.  If  Mr.  Bilge  is  rich  eftough  to 
build  a  tower  four  hundred  feet  high  and  give  it 
a  crown  of  golden  crescents  and  crimson  stars,  in  order 
to  draw  attention  to  his  manufacture  of  the  Paradise 
Tooth  Paste  or  the  Seventh  Heaven  Cigar,  I  do  not 
feel  the  least  disposition  to  thank  him  for  any  serious 
form  of  social  service.  I  have  never  tried  the  Seventh 
Heaven  Cigar;  indeed  a  premonition  moves  me  towards 
the  belief  that  I  shall  go  down  to  the  dust  without  trying 
it.  I  have  every  reason  to  doubt  whether  it  does  any  par 
ticular  good  to  those  who  smoke  it,  or  any  good  to  any 
body  except  those  who  sell  it.  In  short  Mr.  Bilge's 
usefulness  consists  in  being  useful  to  Mr.  Bilge,  and  all 
the  rest  is  illusion  and  sentimentalism.  But  because 
I  know  that  Bilge  is  only  Bilge,  shall  I  stoop  to  the  pro 
fanity  of  saying  that  fire  is  only  fire?  Shall  I  blas 
pheme  crimson  stars  any  more  than  crimson  sunsets, 
or  deny  that  those  moons  are  golden  any  more  than 
that  this  grass  is  green?  If  a  child  saw  these  coloured 
lights,  he  would  dance  with  as  much  delight  as  at  any 
other  coloured  toys;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every  poet, 
and  even  of  every  critic,  to  dance  in  respectful  imita 
tion  of  the  child.  Indeed  I  am  in  a  mood  of  so  much 
sympathy  with  the  fairy  lights  of  this  pantomime  city, 
that  I  should  be  almost  sorry  to  see  social  sanity  and  a 
sense  of  proportion  return  to  extinguish  them.  I 
fear  the  day  is  breaking,  and  the  broad  daylight  of 
tradition  and  ancient  truth  is  coming  to  end  all  this 
delightful  nightmare  of  New  York  at  night.  Peas 
ants  and  priests  and  all  sorts  of  practical  and  sensible 


40  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

people  are  coming  back  into  power,  and  their  stern 
realism  may  wither  all  these  beautiful,  unsubstantial, 
useless  things.  They  will  not  believe  in  the  Seventh 
Heaven  Cigar,  even  when  they  see  it  shining  as  with 
stars  in  the  seventh  heaven.  They  will  not  be  affected 
by  advertisements,  any  more  than  the  priests  and  peas 
ants  of  the  Middle  Ages  would  have  been  affected  by 
advertisements.  Only  a  very  soft-headed,  sentimental 
and  rather  servile  generation  df  men  could  possibly 
be  affected  by  advertisements  at  all.  People  who  are 
a  little  more  hard-headed,  humorous,  and  intellectually 
independent,  see  the  rather  simple  joke;  and  are  not 
impressed  by  this  or  any  other  form'  of  self-praise. 
Almost  any  other  men  in  almost  any  other  age  would 
have  seen  the  joke.  If  you  had  said  to  a  man  in  the 
Stone  Age,  'Ugg  says  Ugg  makes  the  best  stone  hatch 
ets/  he  would  have  perceived  a  lack  of  detachment 
and  disinterestedness  about  the  testimonial.  If  you 
had  said  to  a  medieval  peasant,  'Robert  the  Bowyer 
proclaims,  with  three  blasts  of  a  horn,  that  he  makes 
good  bows,'  the  peasant  would  have  said,  'Well,  of 
course  he  does,'  and  thought  about  something  more  im 
portant.  It  is  only  among  people  whose  minds  have 
been  weakened  by  a  sort  of  mesmerism  that  so  trans 
parent  a  trick  as  that  of  advertisement  could  ever  have 
been  tried  at  all.  And  if  ever  we  have  again,  as  for 
other  reasons  I  cannot  but  hope  we  shall,  a  more 
democratic  distribution  of  property  and  a  more  agri 
cultural  basis  of  national  life,  it  would  seem  at  first 
sight  only  too  likely  that  all  this  beautiful  superstition 
will  perish,  and  the  fairyland  of  Broadway  with  all 
its  varied  rainbows  fade  away.  For  such  people  the 
Seventh  Heaven  Cigar,  like  the  nineteenth-century 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY          41 

city,  will  have  ended  in  smoke.  And  even  the  smoke 
of  it  will  have  vanished, 

But  the  next  stage  of  reflection  brings  us  back  to 
the  peasant  looking  at  the  lights  of  Broadway.  It  is 
not  true  to  say  in  the  strict  sense  that  the  peasant  has 
never  seen  such  things  before.  The  truth  is  that  he 
has  seen  them  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  but  for  a  much 
larger  purpose.  Peasants  also  have  their  ritual  and 
ornament,  but  it  is  to  adorn  more  real  things.  Apart 
from  our  first  fancy  about  the  peasant  who  could  not 
read,  there  is  no  doubt  about  what  would  be  apparent 
to  a  peasant  who  could  read,  and  who  could  under 
stand.  For  him  also  fire  is  sacred,  for  him  also  colour 
is  symbolic.  But  where  he  sets  up  a  candle  to  light  the 
little  shrine  of  St.  Joseph,  he  finds  it  takes  twelve  hundred 
candles  to  light  the  Seventh  Heaven  Cigar.  He  is  used 
to  the  colours  in  church  windows  showing  red  for 
martyrs  or  blue  for  madonnas;  but  here  he  can  only 
conclude  that  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow  belong  to 
Mr.  Bilge.  Now  upon  the  aesthetic  side  he  might  well 
be  impressed;  but  it  is  exactly  on  the  social  and  even 
scientific  side  that  he  has  a  right  to  criticise.  If  he  were 
a  Chinese  peasant,  for  instance,  and  came  from  a  land 
of  fireworks,  he  would  naturally  suppose  that  he  had 
happened  to  arrive  at  a  great  fireworks  display  in  cele 
bration  of  something;  perhaps  the  Sacred  Emperor's 
birthday,  or  rather  birthnight.  It  would  gradually  dawn 
on  the  Chinese  philosopher  that  the  Emperor  could  hardly 
be  born  every  night.  And  when  he  learnt  the  truth  the 
philosopher,  if  he  was  a  philosopher,  would  be  a  little 
disappointed  .  .  .  possibly  a  little  disdainful. 

Compare,  for  instance,  these  everlasting  fireworks 
with  the  damp  squibs  and  dying  bonfires  of  Guy  Fawkes 


42  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Day.  That  quaint  and  even  queer  national  festival  has 
been  fading  for  some  time  out  of  English  life.  Still,  it 
was  a  national  festival,  in  the  double  sense  that  it  rep 
resented  some  sort  of  public  spirit  pursued  by  some  sort 
of  popular  impulse.  People  spent  money  on  the  display 
of  fireworks;  they  did  not  get  money  by  it.  And  the 
people  who  spent  money  were  often  those  who  had  very- 
little  money  to  spend.  It  had  something  of  the 
glorious  and  fanatical  character  of  making  the  poor 
poorer.  It  did  not,  like  the  advertisements,  have  only  the 
mean  and  materialistic  character  of  making  the  rich 
richer.  In  short,  it  came  from  the  people  and  it  ap 
pealed  to  the  nation.  The  historical  and  religious  cause 
in  which  it  originated  is  not  mine;  and  I  think  it  has 
perished  partly  through  being  tied  to  a  historical  theory 
for  which  there  is  no  future.  I  think  this  is  illustrated 
in  the  very  fact  that  the  ceremonial  is  merely  negative 
and  destructive.  Negation  and  destruction  are  very 
noble  things  as  far  as  they  go,  and  when  they  go  in  the 
right  direction;  and  the  popular  expression  of  them  has 
always  something  hearty  and  human  about  it.  I  shall 
not  therefore  bring  any  fine  or  fastidious  criticism, 
whether  literary  or  musical,  to  bear  upon  the  little  boys 
who  drag  about  a  bolster  and  a  paper  mask,  calling  out 

Guy  Fawkes  Guy 
Hit  him  in  the  eye. 

But  I  admit  it  is  a  disadvantage  that  they  have  not  a 
saint  or  hero  to  crown  in  effigy  as  well  as  a  traitor  to 
burn  in  effigy.  I  admit  that  popular  Protestantism  has 
become  too  purely  negative  for  people  to  vreathe  in 
flowers  the  statue  of  Mr.  Kensit  or  even  of  Tr.  Clifford. 
I  do  not  disguise  my  preference  for  popular  Catholicism ; 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY         43 

which  still  has  statues  that  can  be  wreathed  in  flowers. 
I  wish  our  national  feast  of  fireworks  revolved  round 
something  positive  and  popular.  I  wish  the  beauty  of 
a  Catherine  Wheel  were  displayed  to  the  glory  of  St. 
Catherine.  I  should  not  especially  complain  if  Roman 
candles  were  really  Roman  candles.  But  this  negative 
character  does  not  destroy  the  national  character;  which 
began  at  least  in  disinterested  faith  and  has  ended  at 
least  in  disinterested  fun.  There  is  nothing  disin 
terested  at  all  about  the  new  commercial  fireworks. 
There  is  nothing  so  dignified  as  a  dingy  guy  among  the 
lights  of  Broadway.  In  that  thoroughfare,  indeed,  the 
very  word  guy  has  another  and  milder  significance.  An 
American  friend  congratulated  me  on  the  impression  I 
had  produced  on  a  lady  interviewer,  observing,  'She  says 
you're  a  regular  guy/  This  puzzled  me  a  little  at  the 
time.  'Her  description  is  no  doubt  correct/  I  said,  'but 
I  confess  that  it  would  never  have  struck  me  as  specially 
complimentary/  But  it  appears  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
graceful  of  compliments,  in  the  original  American.  A 
guy  in  America  is  a  colourless  term  for  a  human  being. 
All  men  are  guys,  being  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  .  .  .  but  I  am  misled  by  another  association. 
And  a  regular  guy  means,  I  presume,  a  reliable  or  re 
spectable  guy.  The  point  here,  however,  is  that  the  guy 
in  the  grotesque  English  sense  does  represent  the  di 
lapidated  remnant  of  a  real  human  tradition  of  sym 
bolising  real  historic  ideals  by  the  sacramental  mystery  of 
fire.  It  is  a  great  fall  from  the  lowest  of  these  lowly 
bonfires  to  the  highest  of  the  modern  sky-signs.  The  new 
illumination  does  not  stand  for  any  national  ideal  at  all ; 
and  what  is  yet  more  to  the  point,  it  does  not  come  from 
any  popular  enthusiasm  at  all.  That  is  where  it  differs 


44  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

from  the  narrowest  national  Protestantism  of  the  Eng 
lish  institution.  Mobs  have  risen  in  support  of  No 
Popery;  no  mobs  are  likely  to  rise  in  defence  of  the  New 
Puffery.  Many  a  poor,  crazy  Orangeman  has  died  say 
ing,  'To  Hell  with  the  Pope' ;  it  is  doubtful  whether  any 
man  will  ever,  with  his  last  breath,  frame  the  ecstatic 
words,  Try  Hugby's  Chewing  Gum/  These  modern 
and  mercantile  legends  are  imposed  upon  us  by  a  mer 
cantile  minority,  and  we  are  merely  passive  to  the  sug 
gestion.  The  hypnotist  of  high  finance  or  big  business 
merely  writes  his  commands  in  heaven  with  a  finger  of 
fire.  All  men  really  are  guys,  in  the  sense  of  dummies. 
We  are  only  the  victims  of  his  pyrotechnic  violence ;  and 
it  is  he  who  hits  us  in  the  eye. 

This  is  the  real  case  against  that  modern  society  that 
rs  symbolised  by  such  art  and  architecture.  It  is  not  that 
it  is  toppling,  but  that  it  is  top-heavy.  It  is  not  that  it  is 
vulgar,  but  rather  that  it  is  not  popular.  *  In  other  words, 
the  democratic  ideal  of  countries  like  America,  while  it  is 
still  generally  sincere  and  sometimes  intense,  is  at  issue 
with  another  tendency,  an  industrial  progress  which  is  of 
all  things  on  earth  the  most  undemocratic.  America  is 
not  alone  in  possessing  the  industrialism,  but  she  is  alone 
in  emphasising  the  ideal  that  strives  with  industrialism. 
Industrial  capitalism  and  ideal  democracy  are  everywhere 
in  controversy ;  but  perhaps  only  here  are  they  in  conflict. 
France  has  a  democratic  ideal;  but  France  is  not  indus 
trial.  England  and  Germany  are  industrial ;  but  England 
and  Germany  are  not  really  democratic.  Of  course 
when  I  speak  here  of  industrialism  I  speak  of  great  in 
dustrial  areas ;  there  is,  as  will  be  noted  later,  another  side 
to  all  these  countries ;  there  is  in  America  itself  not  only  a 
great  deal  of  agricultural  society,  but  a  great  deal  of 


A  MEDITATION  IN  BROADWAY         45 

agricultural  equality;  just  as  there  are  still  peasants  in 
Germany  and  may  some  day  again  be  peasants  in  Eng 
land.  But  the  point  is  that  the  ideal  and  its  enemy  the 
reality  are  here  crushed  very  close  to  each  other  in  the 
high,  narrow  city ;  and  that  the  sky-scraper  is  truly  named 
because  its  top,  towering  in  such  insolence,  is  scraping 
the  stars  off  the  American  sky,  the  very  heaven  of  the 
American  spirit. 

That  seems  to  me  the  main  outline  of  the  whole  prob 
lem.  In  the  first  chapter  of  this  book,  I  have  emphasised 
the  fact  that  equality  is  still  the  ideal  though  no  longer 
the  reality  of  America.  I  should  like  to  conclude  this 
one  by  emphasising  the  fact  that  the  reality  of  modern 
capitalism  is  menacing  that  ideal  with  terrors  and  even 
splendours  that  might  well  stagger  the  wavering  and  im 
pressionable  modern  spirit.  Upon  the  issue  of  that 
struggle  depends  the  question  of  whether  this  new  great 
civilisation  continues  to  exist,  and  even  whether  any  one 
cares  if  it  exists  or  not.  I  have  already  used  the  parable 
of  the  American  flag,  and  the  stars  that  stand  for  a  multi 
tudinous  equality;  I  might  here  take  the  opposite  symbol 
of  these  artificial  and  terrestrial  stars  flaming  on  the  fore 
head  of  the  commercial  city;  and  note  the  peril  of  the 
last  illusion,  which  is  that  the  artificial  stars  may  seem  to 
fill  the  heavens,  and  the  real  stars  to  have  faded  from 
sight.  But  I  am  content  for  the  moment  to  reaffirm  the 
merely  imaginative  pleasure  of  those  dizzy  turrets  and 
dancing  fires.  If  those  nightmare  buildings  were  really 
all  built  for  nothing,  how  noble  they  would  be!  The 
fact  that  they  were  really  built  for  something  need  not 
unduly  depress  us  for  a  moment,  or  drag  down  our  soar 
ing  fancies.  There  is  something  about  these  vertical  lines 
that  suggests  a  sort  of  rush  upwards,  as  of  great  cataracts 


46  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

topsy-turvy.  I  have  spoken  of  fireworks,  but  here  I 
should  rather  speak  of  rockets.  There  is  only  some 
thing  underneath  the  mind  murmuring  that  nothing  re 
mains  at  last  of  a  flaming  rocket  except  a  falling  stick. 
I  have  spoken  of  Babylonian  perspectives,  and  of  words 
written  with  a  fiery  finger,  like  that  huge  unhuman  finger 
that  wrote  on  Belshazzar's  wall.  .  .  .  But  what  did  it 
write  on  Belshazzar's  wall  ?  .  .  .  I  am  content  once  more 
to  end  on  a  note  of  doubt  and  a  rather  dark  sympathy 
with  those  many-coloured  solar  systems  turning  so 
dizzily,  far  up  in  the  divine  vacuum  of  the  night. 

'From  the  earth  we  come  and  to  the  earth  we  return; 
when  people  get  away  from  that  they  are  lost.' 


IRISH    AND  OTHER   INTERVIEWERS 

IT  is  often  asked  what  should  be  the  first  thing  that  a 
man  sees  when  he  lands  in  a  foreign  country;  but  I 
think  it  should  be  the  vision  of  his  own  country. 
At  least  when  I  came  into  New  York  Harbour,  a  sort  of 
grey  and  green  cloud  came  between  me  and  the  towers 
with  multitudinous  windows,  white  in  the  winter  sun 
light;  and  I  saw  an  old  brown  house  standing  back 
among  the  beech-trees  at  home,  the  house  of  only  one 
among  many  friends  and  neighbours,  but  one  somehow 
so  sunken  in  the  very  heart  of  England  as  to  be  uncon 
scious  of  her  imperial  or  international  position,  and  out 
of  sound  of  her  perilous  seas.  But  what  made  most 
clear  the  vision  that  revisited  me  was  something  else. 
Before  we  touched  land  the  men  of  my  own  guild,  the 
journalists  and  reporters,  had  already  boarded  the  ship 
like  pirates.  And  one  of  them  spoke  to  me  in  an  accent 
that  I  knew ;  and  thanked  me  for  all  I  had  done  for  Ire 
land.  And  it  was  at  that  moment  that  I  knew  most 
vividly  that  what  I  wanted  was  to  do  something  for 
England. 

Then,  as  it  chanced,  I  looked  across  at  the  statue  of 
Liberty,  and  saw  that  the  great  bronze  was  gleaming 
green  in  the  morning  light.  I  had  made  all  the  obvious 
jokes  about  the  statue  of  Liberty.  I  found  it  had  a 
soothing  effect  on  earnest  Prohibitionists  on  the  boat  to 
urge,  as  a  point  of  dignity  and  delicacy,  that  it  ought  to 
be  given  back  to  the  French,  a  vicious  race  abandoned 
to  the  culture  of  the  vine.  I  proposed  that  the  last 

47 


48  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

liquors  on  board  should  be  poured  out  in  a  pagan  libation 
before  it.  And  then  I  suddenly  remembered  that  this 
Liberty  was  still  in  some  sense  enlightening  the  world, 
or  one  part  of  the  world;  was  a  lamp  for  one  sort  of 
wanderer,  a  star  of  one  sort  of  seafarer.  To  one  perse 
cuted  people  at  least  this  land  had  really  been  an  asylum ; 
even  if  recent  legislation  (as  I  have  said)  had  made  them 
think  it  a  lunatic  asylum.  They  had  made  it  so  much 
their  home  that  the  very  colour  of  the  country  seemed  to 
change  with  the  infusion;  as  the  bronze  of  the  great 
statue  took  on  a  semblance  of  the  wearing  of  the  green. 
•  It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  Englishman  has  been 
stupid  in  his  relations  with  the  Irish ;  but  he  has  been  far 
more  stupid  in  his  relations  with  the  Americans  on  the 
subject  of  the  Irish.  His  propaganda  has  been  worse 
than  his  practice;  and  his  defence  more  ill-considered 
than  the  most  indefensible  things  that  it  was  intended  to 
defend.  There  is  in  this  matter  a  curious  tangle  of 
cross-purposes,  which  only  a  parallel  example  can  make 
at  all  clear.  And  I  will  note  the  point  here,  because  it 
is  some  testimony  to  its  vivid  importance  that  it  was 
really  the  first  I  had  to  discuss  on  American  soil  with  an 
American  citizen.  In  a  double  sense  I  touched  Ireland 
before  I  came  to  America.  I  will  take  an  imaginary  in 
stance  from  another  controversy;  in  order  to  show  how 
the  apology  can  be  worse  than  the  action.  The  best  we 
can  say  for  ourselves  is  worse  than  the  worst  that  we 
can  do. 

There  was  a  time  when  English  poets  and  other 
.publicists  could  always  be  inspired  with  instantaneous 
indignation  about  the  persecuted  Jews  in  Russia.  We 
have  heard  less  about  them  since  we  heard  more  about 
the  persecuting  Jews  in  Russia.  I  fear  there  are  a  great 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      49 

many  middle-class  Englishmen  already  who  wish  that 
Trotsky  had  been  persecuted  a  little  more.  But  even 
in  those  days  Englishmen  divided  their  minds  in  a 
curious  fashion;  and  unconsciously  distinguished  be 
tween  the  Jews  whom  they  had  never  seen,  in  Warsaw, 
and  the  Jew  whom  they  had  often  seen  in  Whitechapel. 
It  seemed  to  be  assumed  that,  by  a  curious  coincidence, 
Russia  possessed  not  only  the  very  worst  Anti-Semites 
but  the  very  best  Semites.  A  moneylender  in  London 
might  be  like  Judas  Iscariot;  but  a  moneylender  in  Mos 
cow  must  be  like  Judas  Maccabaeus. 

Nevertheless  there  remained  in  our  common  sense  an 
unconscious  but  fundamental  comprehension  of  the  unity 
of  Israel;  a  sense  that  some  things  could  be  said,  and 
some  could  not  be  said,  about  the  Jews  as  a  whole.  Sup 
pose  that  even  in  those  days,  to  say  nothing  of  these,  an 
English  protest  against  Russian  Anti-Semitism  had  been 
answered  by  the  Russian  Anti-Semites,  and  suppose  the 
answer  'had  been  somewhat  as  follows : — 

'It  is  all  very  well  for  foreigners  to  complain  of  our 
denying  civic  rights  to  our  Jewish  subjects ;  but  we  know 
the  Jews  better  than  they  do.  They  are  a  barbarous 
people,  entirely  primitive,  and  very  like  the  simple 
savages  who  cannot  count  beyond  five  on  their  fingers. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  make  them  understand  ordinary 
numbers,  to  say  nothing  of  simple  economics.  They  do 
not  realise  the  meaning  or  the  value  of  money.  No  Jew 
anywhere  in  the  world  can  get  into  his  stupid  head  the 
notion  of  a  bargain,  or  of  exchanging  one  thing  for 
another.  Their  hopeless  incapacity  for  commerce  or 
finance  would  retard  the  progress  of  our  people,  would 
prevent  the  spread  of  any  sort  of  economic  education, 
would  keep  the  whole  country  on  a  level  lower  than 


50  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

that  of  the  most  prehistoric  methods  of  barter.  What 
Russia  needs  most  is  a  mercantile  middle  class ;  and  it  is 
unjust  to  ask  us  to  swamp  its  small  beginnings  in 
thousands  of  these  rude  tribesmen,  who  cannot  do  a  sum 
of  simple  addition,  or  understand  the  symbolic  character 
of  a  threepenny  bit,  We  might  as  well  be  asked  to  give 
civic  rights  to  cows  and  pigs  as  to  this  unhappy  half 
witted  race  who  can  no  more  count  than  the  beasts  of 
the  field.  In  every  intellectual  exercise  they  are  hope 
lessly  incompetent;  no  Jew  can  play  chess;  no  Jew  can 
learn  languages ;  no  Jew  has  ever  appeared  in  the  smallest 
part  in  any  theatrical  performance;  no  Jew  can  give  or 
.  take  any  pleasure  connected  with  any  musical  instrument. 
These  people  are  our  subjects ;  and  we  must  understand 
them.  We  accept  full  responsibility  for  treating  such 
troglodytes  on  our  own  terms/ 

It  would  not  be  entirely  convincing.  It  would  sound 
a  little  far-fetched  and  unreal.  But  it  would  sound 
exactly  like  our  utterances  about  the  Irish,  as  they  sound 
to  all  Americans,  and  rather  especially  to  Anti-Irish 
Americans.  That  is  exactly  the  impression  we  produce 
on  the  people  of  the  United  States  when  we  say,  as  we 
do  say  in  substance,  something  like  this:  'We  mean  no 
harm  to  the  poor  dear  Irish,  so  dreamy,  so  irresponsible, 
so  incapable  of  order  or  organisation.  If  we  were  to 
withdraw  from  their  country  they  would  only  fight 
among  themselves;  they  have  no  notion  of  how  to  rule 
themselves.  There  is  something  charming  about  their 
unpracticability,  about  their  very  incapacity  for  the 
coarse  business  of  politics.  But  for  their  own  sakes  it 
is  impossible  to  leave  these  emotional  visionaries  to  ruin 
themselves  in  the  attempt  to  rule  themselves,  They  are 
like  children;  but  they  are  our  own  children,  and  we 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      '51 

understand   them.     We    accept    full   responsibility    for 
acting  as  their  parents  and  guardians,' 

Now  the  point  is  not  only  that  this  view  of  the  Irish  is 
false,  but  that  it  is  the  particular  view  that  the  Americans 
know  to  be  false.  While  we  are  saying  that  the  Irish 
could  not  organise,  the  Americans  are  complaining,  often 
very  bitterly,  of  the  power  of  Irish  organisation,  While 
we  say  that  the  Irishman  could  not  rule  himself,  the 
Americans  are  saying,  more  or  less  humorously,  that  the 
Irishman  rules  them.  A  highly  intelligent  professor 
said  to  me  in  Boston,  'We  have  solved  the  Irish  problem 
here;  we  have  an  entirely  independent  Irish  Govern 
ment.'  While  we  are  complaining,  in  an  almost  passion 
ate  manner,  of  the  impotence  of  mere  cliques  of  idealists 
and  dreamers,  they  are  complaining,  often  in  a  very  in 
dignant  manner,  of  the  power  of  great  gangs  of  bosses 
and  bullies.  There  are  a  great  many  Americans  who 
pity  the  Irish,  very  naturally  and  very  rightly,  for  the 
historic  martyrdom  which  their  patriotism  has  endured. 
[But  there  are  a  great  many  Americans  who  do  not  pity 
the  Irish  in  the  least.  They  would  be  much  more  likery 
to  pity  the  English;  only  this  particular  way  of  talking 
tends  rather  to  make  them  despise  the  English.  Thus 
both  the  friends  of  Ireland  and  the  foes  of  Ireland  tend 
to  be  the  foes  of  England.  We  make  one  set  of  enemies 
by  our  action,  and  another  by  our  apology. 

It  is  a  thing  that  can  from  time  to  time  be  found  ifi 
history;  a  misunderstanding  that  really  has  a  moral. 
The  English  excuse  would  carry  much  more  weight  if 
it  had  more  sincerity  and  more  humility.  There  are  a 
considerable  number  of  people  in  the  United  States  who 
could  sympathise  with  us,  if  we  would  say  frankly  that 
we  fear  the  Irish.  Those  who  thus  despise  our  pity 


52  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

might  possibly  even  respect  our  fear.  The  argument  I 
have  often  used  in  other  places  comes  back  with  prodi 
gious  and  redoubled  force,  after  hearing  anything  of 
American  opinion ;  the  argument  that  the  only  reasonable 
or  reputable  excuse  for  the  English  is  the  excuse  of  a  pa 
triotic  sense  of  peril ;  and  that  the  Unionist,  if  he  must  be 
a  Unionist,  should  use  that  and  no  other.  When  the 
Unionist  has  said  that  he  dare  not  let  loose  against  him 
self  a  captive  he  has  so  cruelly  wronged,  he  has  said  all 
that  he  has  to  say ;  all  that  he  has  ever  had  to  say ;  all  that 
he  will  ever  have  to  say.  He  is  like  a  man  who  has  sent 
a  virile  and  rather  vindictive  rival  unjustly  to  penal 
servitude;  and  who  connives  at  the  continuance  of  the 
sentence,  not  because  he  himself  is  particularly  vindic 
tive,  but  because  he  is  afraid  of  what  the  convict  will  do 
when  he  comes  out  of  prison.  This  is  not  exactly  a 
moral  strength,  but  it  is  a  very  human  weakness;  and 
that  is  the  most  that  can  be  said  for  it.  All  other  talk, 
about  Celtic  frenzy  or  Catholic  superstition,  is  cant  in 
vented  to  deceive  himself  or  to  deceive  the  world.  But 
the  vital  point  to  realise  is  that  it  is  cant  that  cannot  pos 
sibly  deceive  the  American  world.  In  the  matter  of  the 
Irishman  the  American  is  not  to  be  deceived.  It  is  not 
merely  true  to  say  that  he  knows  better.  It  is  equally 
true  to  say  that  he  knows  worse.  He  knows  vices  and 
evils  in  the  Irishman  that  are  entirely  hidden  in  the  hazy 
vision  of  the  Englishman.  He  knows  that  our  unreal 
slanders  are  inconsistent  even  with  the  real  sins.  To  us 
Ireland  is  a  shadowy  Isle  of  Sunset,  like  Atlantis,  about 
which  we  can  make  up  legends.  To  him  it  is  a  positive 
ward  or  parish  in  the  heart  of  his  huge  cities,  like  White- 
chapel;  about  which  even  we  cannot  make  legends  but 
only  lies.  And,  as  I  have  said,  there  are  some  lies  we  do 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      53 

not  tell  even  about  Whitechapel.  We  do  not  say  it  is  in 
habited  by  Jews  too  stupid  to  count  or  know  the  value  of 
a  coin. 

The  first  thing  for  any  honest  Englishman  to  send 
across  the  sea  is  this;  that  the  English  have  not  the 
shadow  of  a  notion  of  what  they  are  up  against  in  Amer 
ica.  They  have  never  even  heard  of  the  batteries  of 
almost  brutal  energy,  of  which  I  had  thus  touched  a  live 
wire  even  before  I  landed.  People  talk  about  the  hypoc 
risy  of  England  in  dealing  with  a  small  nationality. 
What  strikes  me  is  the  stupidity  of  England  in  supposing 
that  she  is  dealing  with  a  small  nationality;  when  she  is 
really  dealing  with  a  very  large  nationality.  She  is  deal 
ing  with  a  nationality  that  often  threatens,  even  numeri 
cally,  to  dominate  all  the  other  nationalities  of  the  United 
States.  The  Irish  are  not  decaying;  they  are  not  un 
practical;  they  are  scarcely  even  scattered;  they  are  not 
even  poor.  They  are  the  most  powerful  and  practical 
world-combination  with  whom  we  can  decide  to  be 
friends  or  foes;  and  that  is  why  I  thought  first  of  that 
still  and  solid  brown  house  in  Buckinghamshire,  standing 
back  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees. 

Among  my  impressions  of  America  I  have  deliberately 
put  first  the  figure  of  the  Irish- American  interviewer, 
standing  on  the  shore  more  symbolic  than  the  statue  of 
Liberty.  The  Irish  interviewer's  importance  for  the 
English  lay  in  the  fact  of  his  being  an  Irishman,  but 
there  was  also  considerable  interest  in  the  circumstance 
of  his  being  an  interviewer.  And  as  certain  wild  birds 
sometimes  wing  their  way  far  out  to  sea  and  are  the  first 
signal  of  the  shore,  so  the  first  Americans  the  traveller 
meets  are  often  American  interviewers ;  and  they  are  gen 
erally  birds  of  a  feather,  and  they  certainly  flock  together. 


54  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

In  this  respect,  there  is  a  slight  difference  in  the  etiquette 
of  the  craft  in  the  two  countries,  which  I  was  delighted 
to  discuss  with  my  fellow  craftsmen.  If  I  could  at  that 
moment  have  flown  back  to  Fleet  Street  I  am  happy  to 
reflect  that  nobody  in  the  world  would  in  the  least  wish  to 
interview  me.  I  should  attract  no  more  attention  than 
the  stone  griffin  opposite  the  Law  Courts ;  both  monsters 
;being  grotesque  but  also  familiar.  But  supposing  for 
the  sake  of  argument  that  anybody  did  want  to  interview 
me,  it  Is  fairly  certain  that  the  fact  of  one  paper  publish 
ing  such  an  interview  would  rather  prevent  the  other 
papers  from  doing  so.  The  repetition  of  the  same  views 
of  the  same  individual  in  two  places  would  be  considered 
rather  bad  journalism;  it  would  have  an  air  of  stolen 
thunder,  not  to  say  stage  thunder. 

But  in  America  the  fact  of  my  landing  and  lecturing 
was  evidently  regarded  in  the  same  light  as  a  murder  or 
a  great  fire,  or  any  other  terrible  but  incurable  catastro 
phe,  a  matter  of  interest  to  all  pressmen  concerned  with 
practical  events.  One  of  the  first  questions  I  was  asked 
was  how  I  should  be  disposed  to  explain  the  wave 
of  crime  in  New  York.  Naturally  I  replied  that  it  might 
possibly  be  due  to  the  number  of  English  lecturers  who 
had  recently  landed.  In  the  mood  of  the  moment  it 
seemed  possible  that,  if  they  had  all  been  interviewed, 
regrettable  incidents  might  possibly  have  taken  place. 
But  this  was  only  the  mood  of  the  moment,  and  even  as 
a  mood  did  not  last  more  than  a  moment.  And  since  it 
has  reference  to  a  rather  common  and  a  rather  unjust 
conception  of  American  journalism,  I  think  it  well  to 
take  it  first  as  a  fallacy  to  be  refuted,  though  the  refuta 
tion  may  require  a  rather  long  approach. 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      '53 

I  have  generally  found  that  the  traveller  fails  to  under 
stand  a  foreign  country,  through  treating  it  as  a  tendency 
and  not  as  a  balance.  But  if  a  thing  were  always  tend 
ing  in  one  direction  it  would  soon  tend  to  destruction. 
Everything  that  merely  progresses  finally  perishes. 
Every  nation,  like  every  family,  exists  upon  a  compro 
mise,  and  commonly  a  rather  eccentric  compromise; 
using  the  word  'eccentric'  in  the  sense  of  something  that 
is  somehow  at  once  crazy  and  healthy.  Now  the  for 
eigner  commonly  sees  some  feature  that  he  thinks  fantas 
tic  without  seeing  the  feature  that  balances  it.  The  ordi 
nary  examples  are  obvious  enough.  An  Englishman 
dining  inside  an  hotel  on  the  boulevards  thinks  the 
French  eccentric  in  refusing  to  open  a  window.  But  he 
does  not  think  the  English  eccentric  in  refusing  to  carry 
"their  chairs  and  tables  out  on  to  the  pavement  in  Ludgate 
Circus.  An  Englishman  will  go  poking  about  in  little 
Swiss  or  Italian  villages,  in  wild  mountains  or  in  remote 
islands,  demanding  tea;  and  never  reflects  that  he  is  like 
a  Chinaman  who  should  enter  all  the  wayside  publio 
houses  in  Kent  or  Sussex  and  demand  opium.  But  the 
point  is  not  merely  that  he  demands  what  he  cannot  ex 
pect  to  enjoy;  it  is  that  he  ignores  even  what  he  does  en 
joy.  He  does  not  realise  the  sublime  and  starry  paradox 
of  the  phrase,  vin  ordinaire,  which  to  him  should  be  a 
glorious  jest  like  the  phrase  'common  gold'  or  'daily  dia 
monds.'  These  are  the  simple  and  self-evident  cases; 
but  there  are  many  more  subtle  cases  of  the  same  thing; 
of  the  tendency  to  see  that  the  nation  fills  up  its  own  gap 
with  its  own  substitute ;  or  corrects  its  own  extravagance 
with  its  own  precaution.  The  national  antidote  gener 
ally  grows  wild  in  the  woods  side  by  side  with  the  na- 


56  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

tional  poison.  If  it  did  not,  all  the  natives  would  be 
dead.  For  it  is  so,  as  I  have  said,  that  nations  necessarily 
die  of  the  undiluted  poison  called  progress. 

It  is  so  in  this  much-abused  and  over-abused  example 
of  the  American  journalist.  /  The  American  interviewers 
really  have  exceedingly  good  manners  for  the  purposes 
of  their  trade,  granted  that  it  is  necessary  to  pursue  their 
trade.  And  even  what  is  called  their  hustling  method 
can  truly  be  said  to  cut  both  ways,  or  hustle  both  ways ; 
for  if  they  hustle  in,  they  also  hustle  out.  It  may  not  at 
first  sight  seem  the  very  warmest  compliment  to  a  gentle 
man  to  congratulate  him  on  the  fact  that  he  soon  goes 
away.  But  it  really  is  a  tribute  to  his  perfection  in  a 
very  delicate  social  art;  and  I  am  quite  serious  when  I 
say  that  in  this  respect  the  interviewers  are  artists.  It 
might  be  more  difficult  for  an  Englishman  to  come  to 
the  point,  particularly  the  sort  of  point  which  American 
journalists  are  supposed,  with  some  exaggeration,  to  aim 
at.  It  might  be  more  difficult  for  an  Englishman  to  ask 
a  total  stranger  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  for  the  exact 
inscription  on  his  mother's  grave;  but  I  really  think  that 
if  an  Englishman  once  got  so  far  as  that  he  would  go 
very  much  farther,  and  certainly  go  on  very  much 
longer.  The  Englishman  would  approach  the  church 
yard  by  a  rather  more  wandering  woodland  path ;  but  if 
once  he  had  got  to  the  grave  I  think  he  would  have  much 
more  disposition,  so  to  speak,  to  sit  down  on  it.  Our 
own  national  temperament  would  find  it  decidedly  more 
difficult  to  disconnect  when  connections  had  really  been 
established.  Possibly  that  is  the  reason  why  our  na 
tional  temperament  does  not  establish  them.  I  suspect 
that  the  real  reason  that  an  Englishman  does  not  talk  is 
that  he  cannot  leave  off  talking.  I  suspect  that  my  soli- 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      57 

tary  countrymen,  hiding  in  separate  railway  compart 
ments,  are  not  so  much  retiring  .as  a  race  of  Trappists 
as  escaping  from  a  race  of.  talkers. 

However  this  may  be,  there  is  obviously  something 
of  practical  advantage  in  the  ease  with  which  the  Ameri 
can  butterfly  flits  from  flower  to  flower.  He  may  in  a 
sense  force  his  acquaintance  on  us,  but  he  does  not  force 
himself  on  us.  Even  when,  to  our  prejudices,  he  seems 
to  insist  on  knowing  us,  "at  least  he  does  not  insist  on  our 
knowing  him.  It  may  be,  to  some  sensibilities,  a  bad 
thing  that  a  total  stranger  should  talk  as  if  he  were  a 
friend,  but  it  might  possibly  be  worse  if  he  insisted  on 
being  a  friend  before  he  would  talk  like  one.  To  a  great 
deal  of  the  interviewing1,  indeed  much  the  greater  part  of 
it,  even  this  criticism  does  not  apply;  there  is  nothing 
which  even  an  Englishman  of  extreme  sensibility  could 
regard  as  particularly  private ;  the  questions  involved  are 
generally  entirely  public,  and  treated  with  not  a  little 
public  spirit.  But  my  only  reason  for  saying  here  what 
can  be  said  even  for  the  worst  exceptions  is  to  point  out 
this  g'eneral  and  neglected  principle;  that  the  very  thing 
that  we  complain  of  in  a  foreigner  generally  carries  with 
it  its  own  foreign  cure.  American  interviewing  is  gen 
erally  very  reasonable,  and  it  is  always  very  rapid.  And 
even  those  to  whom  talking  to  an  intelligent  fellow  crea 
ture  is  as  horrible  as  having  a  tooth  out  may  still  admit 
that  American  interviewing  has  many  of  the  qualities  of 
American  dentistry. 

Another  effect  that  has  given  rise  to  this  fallacy,  this 
exaggeration  of  the  vulgarity  and  curiosity  of  the  press, 
is  the  distinction  between  the  articles  and  the  headlines ; 
or  rather  the  tendency  to  ignore  that  distinction.  The 
few  really  untrue  and  unscrupulous  things  I  have  seen  in 


58  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

American  'stories'  have  always  beeri  in  the  headlines. 
And  the  headlines  are  written  by  somebody  else;  some 
solitary  and  savage  cynic  locked  up  in  the  office,  hating 
all  mankind,  and  raging  and  revenging  himself  at  ran 
dom,  while  the  neat,  polite,  and  rational  pressman  can 
Safely  be  let  loose  to  wander  about  the  town. 

For  instance,  I  talked  to  two  decidedly  thoughtful 
fellow  journalists  immediately  on  my  arrival  at  a  town 
in  which  there  had  been  some  labour  troubles.  I  told 
them  my  general  view  of  Labour  in  the  very  largest  and 
perhaps  the  vaguest  historical  outline;  pointing  out  that 
the  one  great  truth  to  be  taught  to  the  middle  classes  was 
that  Capitalism  was  itself  a  crisis,  and  a  passing  crisis; 
that  it  was  not  so  much  that  it  was  breaking  down  as  that 
it  had  never  really  stood  up.  Slaveries  could  last,  and 
peasantries  could  last;  but  wage-earning  communities 
could  hardly  even  live,  and  were  already  dying. 

All  this  moral  and  even  metaphysical  generalisation 
was  most  fairly  and  most  faithfully  reproduced  by  the  in 
terviewer,  who  had  actually  heard  it  casually  and  idly 
spoken.  But  on  the  top  of  this  column  of  political  phil 
osophy  was  the  extraordinary  announcement  in  enor 
mous  letters,  'Chesterton  Takes  Sides  in  Trolley  Strike/ 
This  was  inaccurate.  When  I  spoke  I  not  only  did  not 
know  that  there  was  any  trolley  strike,  but  I  did  not  know 
What  a  trolley  strike  was.  I  should  have  had  an  indistinct 
idea  that  a  large  number  of  citizens  earned  their  living 
by  carrying  things  about  in  wheel-barrows,  and  that  they 
had  desisted  from  the  beneficent  activities.  Any  one 
who  did  not  happen  to  be  a  journalist,  or  know  a  little 
about  journalism,  American  and  English,  would  have 
Supposed  that  the  Same  man  who  wrote  the  article  had 
Suddenly  gone  mad  and  written  the  title.  But  I  know 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      59 

that  we  have  here  to  deal  with  two  different  types  of 
journalists ;  and  the  man  who  writes  the  headlines  I  will 
not  dare  to  describe;  for  I  have  not  seen  him  except  in 
dreams^ 

Another  innocent  complication  is  that  the  interviewer 
does  sometimes  translate  things  into  his  native  language. 
It  would  not  seem  odd  that  a  French  interviewer  should 
translate  them  into  French;  and  it  is  certain  that  the 
American  interviewer  sometimes  translates  them  into 
American.  Those  who  imagine  the  two  languages  to  be 
the  same  are  more  innocent  than  any  interviewer.  To 
take  one  out  of  the  twenty  examples,  some  of  which  I 
have  mentioned  elsewhere,  suppose  an  interviewer  had 
said  that  I  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  nut.  I  should 
be  flattered  but  faintly  surprised  at  such  a  tribute  to  my 
dress  and  dashing  exterior.  I  should  afterwards  be  so 
bered  and  enlightened  by  discovering  that  in  America 
a  nut  does  not  mean  a  dandy  but  a  defective  or  imbecile 
person.  And  as  I  have  here  to  translate  their  Aimerican 
phrase  into  English,  it  may  be  very  defensible  that  they 
should  translate  my  English  phrases  into  American. 
Anyhow  they  often  do  translate  them  into  American. 
In  answer  to  the  usual  question  about  Prohibition  I 
had  made  the  usual  answer,  obvious  to  the  point  of  dull 
ness  to  those  who  are  in  daily  contact  with  it,  that  it  is 
a  law  that  the  rich  make  knowing  they  can  always  break 
it.  From  the  printed  interview  it  appeared  that  I  had 
said,  'Prohibition !  All  matter  of  dollar  sign/  This 
is  almost  avowed  translation,  like  a  French  translation. 
Nobody  can  suppose  that  it  would  come  natural  to  an 
Englishman  to  talk  about  a  dollar,  still  less  about  a  dollar 
sign — whatever  that  may  be.  It  is  exactly  as  if  he  had 
made  me  talk  about  the  Skelt  and  Stevenson  Toy  Theatre 


60  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

as  'a  cent  plain,  and  two  cents  coloured'  or  condemned 
a  parsimonious  policy  as  dime-wise  and  dollar- foolish. 
Another  interviewer  once  asked  me  who  was  the  greatest 
American  writer.  I  have  forgotten  exactly  what  I  said, 
but  after  mentioning  several  names,  I  said  that  the 
greatest  natural  genius  and  artistic  force  was  probably 
Walt  Whitman.  The  printed  interview  is  more  precise; 
and  -students  of  my  literary  and  conversational  style 
will  be  interested  to  know  that  I  said,  'See  here,  Walt 
Whitman  was  your  one  real  red-blooded  man.'  Here 
again  I  hardly  think  the  translation  can  have  been  quite 
unconscious;  most  of  my  intimates  are  indeed  aware 
that  I  do  not  talk  like  that,  but  I  fancy  that  the  same 
fact  would  have  dawned  on  the  journalist  to  whom  I 
had  been  talking.  And  even  this  trivial  point  carries 
with  it  the  two  truths  which  must  be,  I  fear,  the  rather 
monotonous  moral  of  these  pages.  The  first  is  that 
America  and  England  can  be  far  better  friends  when 
sharply  divided  than  when  shapelessly  amalgamated. 
These  two  journalists  were  false  reporters,  but  they 
were  true  translators.  They  were  not  so  much  inter 
viewers  as  interpreters.  And  the  second  is  that  in  any 
such  difference  it  is  often  wholesome  to  look  beneath 
the  surface  for  a  superiority.  For  ability  to  translate 
does  imply  ability  to  understand;  and  many  of  these 
journalists  really  did  understand.  I  think  there  are  many 
English  journalists  who  would  be  more  puzzled  by  so 
simple  an  idea  as  the  plutocratic  foundation  of  Prohibi 
tion.  But  the  American  knew  at  once  that  I  meant  it 
was  a  matter  of  dollar  sign;  probably  because  he  knew 
very  well  that  it  is. 

Then  again  there  is  a  curious  convention  by  which 
American  interviewing  makes  itself  out  much  worse  than 


IRISH  AND  OTHER  INTERVIEWERS      61 

it  is.  The  reports  are  far  more  rowdy  and  insolent  than 
the  conversations.  This  is  probably  a  part  of  the  fact 
that  a  certain  vivacity,  which  to  some  seems  vitality  and 
to  some  vulgarity,  is  not  only  an  ambition  but  an  ideal. 
It  must  always  be  grasped  that  this  vulgarity  is  an  ideal 
even  more  than  it  is  a  reality.  It  is  an  ideal  when  it 
is  not  a  reality.  A  very  quiet  and  intelligent  young 
man,  in  a  soft  black  hat  and  tortoise-shell  spectacles, 
will  ask  for  an  interview  with  unimpeachable  politeness, 
wait  for  his  living  subject  with  unimpeachable  patience, 
talk  to  him  quite  sensibly  for  twenty  minutes,  and  go 
noiselessly  away.  Then  in  the  newspaper  next  morning 
you  will  read  how  he  beat  the  bedroom  door  in,  and 
pursued  his  victim  on  to  the  roof  or  dragged  him  from 
under  the  bed,  and  tore  from!  him  replies  to  all  sorts  of 
bald  and  ruthless  questions  printed  in  large  black  letters. 
I  was  often  interviewed  in  the  evening,  and  had  no  notion 
of  how  atrociously  I  had  been  insulted  till  I  saw  it  in  the 
paper  next  morning.  I  had  no  notion  I  had  been  on  the 
rack  of  an  inquisitor  until  I  saw  it  in  plain  print;  and 
then  of  course  I  believed  it,  with  a  faith  and  docility 
unknown  in  any  previous  epoch  of  history.  An  inter 
esting  essay  might  be  written  upon  points  upon  which 
nations  affect  more  vices  than  they  possess ;  and  it  might 
deal  more  fully  with  the  American  pressman,  who  is  a 
harmless  clubman  in  private,  and  becomes  a  sort  of  high 
way-robber  in  print. 

I  have  turned  this  chapter  into  something  like  a  defence 
of  interviewers,  because  I  really  think  they  are  made  to 
'bear  too  much  of  the  burden  of  the  bad  developments  of 
modern  journalism.  But  I  am  very  far  from  meaning 
to  suggest  that  those  bad  developments  are  not  very  bad. 
So  far  from  wishing  to  minimise  the  evil,  I  would  in 


62  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

a  real  sense  rather  magnify  it.  I  would  suggest  that 
the  evil  itself  is  a  much  larger  and  more  fundamental 
thing;  and  that  to  deal  with  it  by  abusing  poor  journalists, 
doing  their  particular  and  perhaps  peculiar  duty,  is  like 
dealing  with  a  pestilence  by  rubbing  at  one  of  the  spots. 
What  is  wrong  with  the  modern  world  will  not  be  righted 
by  attributing  the  whole  disease  to  each  of  its  symptoms 
in  turn;  first  to  the  tavern  and  then  to  the  cinema  and 
then  to  the  reporter's  room.  The  evil  of  journalism  is 
not  in  the  journalists.  It  is  not  in  the  poor  men  on  the 
lowest  level  of  the  profession,  but  in  the  rich  men  at 
the  top  of  the  profession ;  or  rather  in  the  rich  men  who 
are  too  much  on  top  of  the  profession  even  to  belong  to 
it.  The  trouble  with  newspapers  is  the  Newspaper  Trust, 
as  the  trouble  might  be  with  a  Wheat  Trust,  without 
involving  a  vilification  of  all  tne  people  who  grow  wheat. 
It  is  the  American  plutocracy  and  not  the  American  press. 
What  is  the  matter  with  the  modern  world  is  not  modern 
headlines  or  modern  films  or  modern  machinery.  What 
is  the  matter  with  the  modern  world  is  the  modern  world ; 
and  the  cure  will  come  from  another. 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES 

THERE  is  one  point,  almost  to  be  called  a  para 
dox,  to  be  noted  about  New  York;  and  that  is 
that  in  one  sense  it  is  really  new.  The  term 
very  seldom  has  any  relevance  to  the  reality.  The  New 
Forest  is  nearly  as  old  as  the  Conquest,  and  the  New 
Theology  is  nearly  as  old  as  the  Creed.  Things  have 
been  offered  to  me  as  the  new  thought  that  might  more 
(properly  be  called  the  old  thoughtlessness ;  and  the  thing 
we  call  the  New  Poor  Law  is  already  old  enough  to 
know  better.  But  there  is  a  sense  in  which  New  York 
is  always  new;  in  the  sense  that  it  is  always  being  re 
newed.  A  stranger  might  well  say  that  the  chief  in 
dustry  of  the  citizens  consists  of  destroying  their  city; 
but  he  soon  realises  that  they  always  start  it  all  over 
again  with  undimmished  energy  and  hope.  At  first  I 
had  a  fancy  that  they  never  quite  finished  putting  up 
a  big  building  without  feeling  that  it  was  time  to  pull  it 
down  again ;  and  that  somebody  began  to  dig  up  the  first 
foundations  while  somebody  else  was  putting  on  the  last 
tiles.  This  fills  the  whole  of  this  brilliant  and  bewilder 
ing  place  with  a  quite  unique  and  unparalleled  air  of  rapid 
ruin.  Ruins  spring  up  so  suddenly  like  mushrooms, 
which  with  us  are  the  growth  of  age  like  mosses,  that  one 
half  expects  to  see  ivy  climbing  quickly  up  the  broken 
walls  as  in  the  nightmare  of  the  Time  Machine,  or  in 
some  incredibly  accelerated  cinema. 

There  is  no  sight  in  any  country  that  raises  my  own 
spirits  so  much  as  a  scaffolding.     It  is  a  tragedy  that 

63 


64  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

they  always  take  the  scaffolding  away,  and  leave  us 
nothing  but  a  mere*  building.  If  they  would  only  take 
the  building  away  and  leave  us  a  beautiful  scaffolding,  it 
would  in  most  cases  be  a  gain  to  the  loveliness  of  earth. 
If  I  could  analyse  what  it  is  that  lifts  the  heart  about 
the  lightness  and  clarity  of  such  a  white  and  wooden 
skeleton,  I  could  explain  what  it  is  that  is  really  charm 
ing  about  New  York;  in  spite  o*f  its  suffering  from  the 
curse  of  cosmopolitanism  and  even  the  provincial  super 
stition  of  progress.  It  is  partly  that  all  this  destruction 
and  reconstruction  is  an  unexhausted  artistic  energy;  but 
it  is  partly  also  that  it  is  an  artistic  energy  that  does 
not  take  itself  too  seriously.  It  is  first  because  man  is 
here  a  carpenter;  and  secondly  because  he  is  a  stage  car 
penter.  Indeed  there  is  about  the  whole  scene  the  spirit 
of  scene-shifting.  It  therefore  touches  whatever  nerve 
tin  us  has  since  childhood  thrilled  at  all  theatrical  things. 
But  the  picture  will  be  imperfect  unless  we  realise  some 
thing  which  gives  it  unity  and  marks  its  chief  difference 
from  the  climate  and  colours  of  Western  Europe.  We 
may  say  that  the  back-scene  remains  the  same.  The 
sky  remained,  and  in  the  depths  of  winter  it  seemed  to  be 
blue  with  summer;  and  so  clear  that  I  almost  flattered 
myself  that  clouds  were  English  products  like  primroses. 
An  American  would  probably  retort  on  my  charge  of 
scene-shifting  by  saying  that  at  least  he  only  shifted  the 
towers  and  domes  of  the  earth;  and  that  in  England  it  is 
the  heavens  that  are  shifty.  And  indeed  we  have 
changes  from  day  to  day  that  would  seem  to  him  as 
distinct  as  different  magic-lantern  slides;  one  view 
showing  the  Bay  of  Naples  and  the  next  the  North  Pole. 
I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  there  are  no  changes  in 
American  weather;  but  as  a  matter  of  proportion  it  is 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  65 

true  that  the  most  unstable  part  of  our  scenery  is  the 
most  stable  part  of  theirs.  Indeed  we  might  almost  be 
pardoned  the  boast  that  Britain  alone  really  possesses  the 
noble  thing  called  weather;  most  other  countries  having 
to  be  content  with  climate.  It  must  be  confessed,  how 
ever,  that  they  often  are  content  with  it.  And  the  beauty 
of  New  York,  which  is  considerable,  is  very  largely  due 
to  the  clarity  that  brings  out  the  colours  of  varied  build 
ings  against  the  equal  colour  of  the  sky.  Strangely 
enough  I  found  myself  repeating  about  this  vista  of  the 
West  two  vivid  lines  in  which  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  has  called 
up  a  vision  of  the  East : — 

And  coloured  like  the  eastern  birds 
At  evening  in  their  rainless  skies. 

To  invoke  a  somewhat  less  poetic  parallel,  even  the 
untravelled  Englishman  has  probably  seen  American 
posters  and  trade  advertisements  of  a  patchy  and  gaudy 
kind,  in  which  a  white  house  or  a  yellow  motor-car  are 
cut  out  as  in  a  cardboard  against  a  sky  like  blue  marble. 
I  used  to  think  it  was  only  New  Art,  but  I  found  that  it 
is  really  New  York. 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  very  nature  of  local 
character  has  gained  the  nickname  of  local  colour. 
Colour  runs  through  all  our  experience ;  -and  we  all  know 
that  our  childhood  found  talismanic  gems  in  the  very 
paints  in  the  paint-box,  or  even  in  their  very  names. 
And  just  as  the  very  name  of  'crimson  lake'  really  sug 
gested  to  me  some  sanguine  and  mysterious  mere,  dark 
yet  red  as  blood,  so  the  very  name  of  'burnt  sienna' 
became  afterwards  tangled  up  in  my  mind  with  the 
notion  of  something  traditional  and  tragic;  as  if  some 
such  golden  Italian  city  had  really  been  darkened  by 


66  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

many  conflagrations  in  the  wars  of  mediaeval  de 
mocracy.  Now  if  one  had  the  caprice  of  conceiving  some 
city  exactly  contrary  to  one  thus  seared  and  seasoned  by 
fire,  its  colour  might  be  called  up  to  a  childish  fancy  by 
the  mere  name  of  'raw  umber';  and  such  a  city  is  New 
York.  I  used  to  be  puzzled  by  the  name  of  'raw  umber/ 
being  unable  to  imagine  the  effect  of  fried  umber  or 
stewed  umber.  But  the  colours  of  New  York  are  exactly 
in  that  key;  and  might  be  adumbrated  by  phrases  like 
raw  pink  or  raw  yellow.  It  is  really  in  a  sense  like 
something  uncooked;  or  something  which  the  satiric 
would  call  half-baked.  And  yet  the  effect  is  not  only 
beautiful,  it  is  even  delicate.  I  had  no  name  for  this 
nuance;  until  I  saw  that  somebody  had  written  of  'the 
pastel-tinted  towers  of  New  York' ;  and  I  knew  that  the 
name  had  been  found.  There  are  no  paints  dry  enough 
to  describe  all  that  dry  light ;  and  it  is  not  a  box  of 
colours  but  of  crayons.  If  the  Englishman  returning  to 
England  is  moved  at  the  sight  of  a  block  of  white  chalk, 
the  American  sees  rather  a  bundle  of  chalks.  Nor  can  I 
imagine  anything  more  moving.  Fairy  tales  are  told  to 
children  about  a  country  where  the  trees  are  like  sugar- 
sticks  and  the  lakes  like  treacle,  but  most  children  would 
feel  almost  as  greedy  for  a  fairyland  where  the  trees 
were  like  brushes  of  green  paint  and  the  hills  were  of 
coloured  chajks^ 

But  here  what  accentuates  the  arid  freshness  is  the 
fragmentary  look  of  the  continual  reconstruction  and 
change.  The  strong  daylight  finds  everywhere  the 
broken  edges  of  things,  and  the  sort  of  hues  we  see  in 
newly-turned  earth  or  the  white  sections  of  trees.  And 
it  is  in  this  respect  that  the  local  colour  can  literally  be 
taken  as  local  character.  For  New  York  considered  in 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  67 

itself  is  primarily  a  place  of  unrest,  and  those  who  sin 
cerely  love  it,  as  many  do,  love  it  for  the  romance  of  its 
restlessness.  A  man  almost  looks  at  a  building  as  he 
passes  to  wonder  whether  it  will  be  there  when  he  comes 
back  from  his  walk;  and  the  doubt  is  part  of  an  inde 
scribable  notion,  as  of  a  white  nightmare  of  daylight, 
which  is  increased  by  the  very  numbering  of  the  streets, 
with  its  tangle  of  numerals  which  at  first  makes  an  Eng 
lish  head  reel.  The  detail  is  merely  a  symbol;  and 
when  he  is  used  to  it  he  can  see  that  it  is,  like  the  most 
humdrum  human  customs,  both  worse  and  better  than 
his  own.  '271  West  52nd  Street'  is  the  easiest  of  all 
addresses  to  find,  but  the  hardest  of  all  addresses  to 
remember.  He  who  is,  like  myself,  so  constituted  as 
necessarily  to  lose  any  piece  of  paper  he  has  particular 
reason  to  preserve,  will  find  himself  wishing  the  place 
were  called  Tine  Crest*  or  'Heather  Crag'  like  any  unob 
trusive  villa  in  Streatham.  But  his  sense  of  some  sort 
of  incalculable  calculations,  as  of  the  vision  of  a  mad 
mathematician,  is  rooted  in  a  more  real  impression.  His 
first  feeling  that  his  head  is  turning  round  is  due  to 
something  really  dizzy  in  the  movement  of  a  life  that 
turns  dizzily  like  a  wheel.  If  there  be  in  the  modern 
mind  something  paradoxical  that  can  find  peace  in 
change,  it  is  here  that  it  has  indeed  built  its  habitation  or 
rather  is  still  building  and  unbuilding  it.  One  might 
fancy  that  it  changes  in  everything  and  that  nothing  en 
dures  but  its  invisible  name;  and  even  its  name,  as  I 
have  said,  seems  to  make  a  boast  of  novelty. 

That  is  something  like  a  sincere  first  impression  of  the 
atmosphere  of  New  York.  Those  who  think  that  is  the 
atmosphere  of  America  have  never  got  any  farther  than 
New  York.  We  might  almost  say  that  they  have  never 


68  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

entered  America,  any  more  than  if  they  had  been  de 
tained  like  undesirable  aliens  at  Ellis  Island.  And  in 
deed  there  are  a  good  many  undesirable  aliens  detained 
on  Manhattan  Island  too.  But  of  that  I  will  not  speak, 
being  myself  an  alien  with  no  particular  pretentions  to 
be  desirable.  Anyhow,  such  is  New  York;  but  such  is 
not  the  New  World.  The  great  American  Republic 
contains  very  considerable  varieties,  and  of  these  varie 
ties,  I  necessarily  saw  far  too  little  to  allow  me  to  gen 
eralise.  But  from  the  little  I  did  see,  I  should  venture 
on  the  generalisation  that  the  great  part  of  America  is 
singularly  and  even  strikingly  unlike  New'  York.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  New  York  is  very  unlike  the 
vast  agricultural  plains  and  small  agricultural  towns  of 
the  Middle  West,  which  I  did  see.  It  may  be  conject 
ured  with  some  confidence  that  it  is  very  unlike  what  is 
called  the  Wild  and  sometimes  the  Woolly  West,  which 
I  did  not  see.  But  I  am  here  comparing  New  York,  not 
with  the  newer  states  of  the  prairie  or  the  mountains, 
but  with  the  other  older  cities  of  the  Atlantic  coast. 
And  New  York,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  quite  vitally  differ 
ent  from  the  other  historic  cities  of  America.  It  is  so 
different  that  it  shows  them  all  for  the  moment  in  a  false 
light,  as  a  long  white  searchlight  will  throw  a  light  that 
is  fantastic  and  theatrical  upon  ancient  and  quiet  villages 
folded  in  the  everlasting  hills.  Philadelphia  and  Boston 
and  Baltimore  are  more  like  those  quiet  villages  than  they 
are  like  New  York. 

If  I  were  to  call  this  book  The  Antiquities  of 
America,'  I  should  give  rise  to  misunderstanding  and 
possibly  to  annoyance.  And  yet  the  double  sense  in 
such  words  is  an  undeserved  misfortune  for  them.  We 
talk  of  Plato  or  the  Parthenon  or  the  Greek  passion  for 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  69 

beauty  as  parts  of  the  antique,  but  hardly  of  the  anti 
quated.  When  we  call  them  ancient  it  ig  not  because 
they  have  perished,  but  rather  because  they  have  sur 
vived.  In  the  same  way  I  hear  some  New  Yorkers  refer 
to  Philadelphia  or  Baltimore  as  'dead  towns/  They 
mean  by  a  dead  town  a  town  that  has  had  the  impudence 
not  to  die.  Such  people  are  astonished  to  find  an  ancient 
thing  alive,  just  as  they  are  now  astonished,  and  will  be 
increasingly  astonished,  to  find  Poland  or  the  Papacy  or 
the  French  nation  still  alive.  And  what  I  mean  by  Phil 
adelphia  and  Baltimore  being  alive  is  precisely  what 
these  people  mean  by  their  being  dead;  it  is  continuity;  it 
is  the  presence  of  the  life  first  breathed  into  them  and  of 
the  purpose  of  their  being;  it  is  the  benediction  of  the 
founders  of  the  colonies  and  the  fathers  of  the  republic. 
This  tradition  is  truly  to  be  called  life;  for  life  alone  can 
link  the  past  and  the  future.  It  merely  means  that  as 
what  was  done  yesterday  makes  some  difference  to-day, 
so  what  is  done  to-day  will  make  some  difference  to 
morrow.  In  New  York  it  is  difficult  to  feel  that  any  day 
will  make  any  difference.  These  moderns  only  die  daily 
without  power  to  rise  from  the  dead.  But  I  can  truly 
claim  that  in  coming  into  some  of  these  more  stable  cities 
of  the  States  I  felt  something  quite  sincerely  of  that  his 
toric  emotion  which  is.  satisfied  in  the  eternal  cities  of  the 
Mediterranean.  I  felt  in  America  what  many  Ameri 
cans  suppose  can  only  be  felt  in  Europe.  I  have  seldom 
had  that  sentiment  stirred  more,  simply  and  directly  than 
when  I  saw  from  afar  off,  above  that  vast  grey  labyrinth 
of  Philadelphia,  great  Penn  upon  his  pinnacle  like  the 
graven  figure  of  a  god  who  had  fashioned  a  new  world; 
and  remembered  that  his  body  lay  buried  in  a  field  at  the 
turning  of  a  'lane,  a  league  from  my  own  door. 


70  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

For  this  aspect  of  America  is  rather  neglected  in  the 
talk  about  electricity  and  headlines.  Needless  to  say,  the 
modern  vulgarity  of  avarice  and  advertisement  sprawls 
all  over  Philadelphia  or  Boston ;  but  so  it  does  over  Win 
chester  or  Canterbury.  But  most  people  know  that  there 
is  something  else  to  be  found  in  Canterbury  or  Winches 
ter;  many  people  know  that  it  is  rather  more  interesting; 
and  some  people  know  that  Alfred  can  still  walk  in  Win 
chester  and  that  St.  Thomas  at  Canterbury  was  killed 
but  did  not  die.  It  is  at  least  as  possible  for  a  Philadel- 
phian  to  feel  the  presence  of  Penn  and  Franklin  as  for  an 
Englishman  to  see  the  ghosts  of  Alfred  and  .of  Becket. 
Tradition  does  not  mean  a  dead  town;  it  does  not  mean 
that  the  living  are  dead  but  that  the  dead  are  alive.  It 
means  that  it  still  matters  what  Penn  did  two  hundred 
years  ago  or  what  Franklin  did  a  hundred  years  ago;  I 
never  could  feel  in  New  York  that  it  mattered  what  any 
body  did  an  hour  ago.  And  these  things  did  and  do  mat 
ter.  Quakerism  is  not  my  favourite  creed;  but  on  that 
day  when  William  Penn  stood  unarmed  upon  that  spot 
and  made  his  treaty  with  the  Red  Indians,  his  creed  of 
humanity  did  have  a  triumph  and  a  triumph  that  has  not 
turned  back.  The  praise  given  to  him  is  not  a  priggish 
fiction  of  our  conventional  history,  though  such  fictions 
have  illogically  curtailed  it.  The  Nonconformists  have 
been  rather  unfair  to  Penn  even  in  picking  their  praises; 
and  they  generally  forget  that  toleration  cuts  both  ways 
and  that  an  open  mind  is  open  on  all  sides.  Those  who 
deify  him  for  consenting  to  bargain  with  the  savages 
cannot  forgive  him  for  consenting  to  bargain  with  the 
Stuarts.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  other  city,  yet 
more  closely  connected  with  the  tolerant  experiment  of 
the  Stuarts.  The  state  of  Maryland  was  the  first  ex- 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  71 

periment  in  religious  freedom  in  human  history.  Lord 
Baltimore  and  his  Catholics  were  a  long  march  ahead 
of  William  Penn  and  his  Quakers  on  what  is  now  called 
the  path  of  progress.  That  the  first  religious  toleration 
ever  granted  in  the  world  was  granted  by  Roman  Cath 
olics  is  one  of  those  little  informing  details  with  which 
our  Victorian  histories  did  not  exactly  teem.  But  when 
I  went  into  my  hotel  at  Baltimore  and  found  two  priests 
waiting  to  see  me,  I  was  moved  in  a  new  fashion,  for 
I  felt  that  I  touched  the  end  of  a  living  chain.  Nor 
was  the  impression  accidental ;  it  will  always  remain  with 
me  with  a  mixture  of  gratitude  and  grief,  for  they 
brought  a  message  of  welcome  from  a  great  American 
whose  name  I  had  known  from  childhood  and  whose 
career  was  drawing  to  its  close;  for  it  was  but  a  few 
days  after  I  left  the  city  that  I  learned  that  Cardinal  Gib 
bons  was  dead. 

On  the  top  of  a  hill  on  one  side  of  the  town  stood 
the  first  monument  raised  after  the  Revolution  to 
Washington.  Beyond  it  was  a  new  monument  saluting 
in  the  name  of  Lafayette  the  American  soldiers  who 
fell  fighting  in  France  in  the  Great  War.  Between 
them  were  steps  and  stone  seats,  and  I  sat  down  on 
one  of  them  and  talked  to  two  children  who  were 
clambering  about  the  bases  of  the  monument.  I  felt 
a  profound  and  radiant  peace  in  the  thought  that  they 
at  any  rate  were  not  going  to  my  lecture.  It  made 
me  happy  that  in  that  talk  neither  they  nor  I  had  any 
names.  I  was  full  of  that  indescribable  waking  vision 
of  the  strangeness  of  life,  and  especially  of  the  strange 
ness  of  locality;  of  how  we  find  places  and  lose  them; 
and  see  faces  for  a  moment  in  a  far-off  land,  and  it  is 
equally  mysterious  if  we  remember  and  mysterious  if  we 


72  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

forget.     I  had  even  stirring  in  my  head  the  suggestion 
of  some  verses  that  I  shall  never  finish — 

If  I  ever  go  back  to  Baltimore 
The  city  of  Maryland. 

But  the  poem  would  have  to  contain  far  too  much; 
for  I  was  thinking  of  a  thousand  things  at  once;  and 
wondering  what  the  children  would  be  like  twenty 
years  after  and  whether  they  would  travel  in  white  goods 
or  be  interested  in  oil,  and  I  was  not  untouched 
(it  may  be  said)  by  the  fact  that  a  neighbouring  shop 
had  provided  the  only  sample  of  the  substance  called 
'tea'  ever  found  on  the  American  continent;  and  in 
front  of  me  soared  up  into  the  sky  on  wings  of  stone 
the  column  of  all  those  high  hopes  of  humanity  a 
hundred  years  ago;  and  beyond  there  were  lighted 
candles  in  the  chapels  and  prayers  in  the  ante-chambers, 
where  perhaps  already  a  Prince  of  the  Church  was 
dying.  Only  on  a  later  page  can  I  even  attempt  to 
comb  out  such  a  tangle  of  contrasts,  which  is  indeed 
the  tangle  of  America  and  this  mortal  life;  but  sitting 
there  on  that  stone  seat  under  that  quiet  sky,  I  had 
some  experience  of  the  thronging  thousands  of  living 
thoughts  and  things,  noisy  and  numberless  as  birds, 
that  give  its  everlasting  vivacity  and  vitality  to  a  dead 
town. 

Two  other  cities  I  visited  which  have  this  particular 
type  of  traditional  character,  the  one  being  typical  of 
the  North  and  the  other  of  the  South.  At  least  I 
may  take  as  convenient  anti-types  the  towns  of  Boston 
and  St.  Louis;  and  we  might  add  Nashville  as  being 
a  shade  more  truly  southern  than  St.  Louis.  To  the 
extreme  South,  in  the  sense  of  what  is  called  the  Black 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  73 

Belt,  I  never  went  at  all.  Now  English  travellers 
expect  the  South  to  be  somewhat  traditional;  but  they 
are  not  prepared  for  the  aspects  of  Boston  in  the 
North  which  are  even  more  so.  If  we  wished  only  for 
an  antic  of  antithesis,  we  might  say  that  on  one  side 
the  places  are  more  prosaic  than  the  names  and  on 
the  other  the  names  are  more  prosaic  than  the  places. 
St.  Louis  is  a  fine  town,  and  we  recognise  a  fine 
instinct  of  the  imagination  that  set  on  the  hill  over 
looking  the  river  the  statue  of  that  holy  horseman 
who  has  christened  the  city.  But  the  city  is  not  as 
beautiful  as  its  name;  it  could  not  be.  Indeed  these 
titles  set  up  a  standard  to  which  the  most  splendid 
spires  and  turrets  could  not  rise,  and  below  which  the 
commercial  chimneys  and  sky-signs  conspicuously  sink. 
We  should  think  it  odd  if  Belfast  had  borne  the  name 
of  Joan  of  Arc.  We  should  be  slightly  shocked  if  the 
town  of  Johannesburg  happened  to  be  called  Jesus  Christ. 
But  few  have  noted  a  blasphemy,  or  even  a  somewhat 
challenging  benediction,  to  be  found  in  the  very  name  of 
San  Francisco. 

But  on  the  other  hand  a  place  like  Boston  is  much 
more  beautiful  than  its  name.  And,  as  I  have  suggested, 
an  Englishman's  general  information,  or  lack  of  infor 
mation,  leaves  him  in  some  ignorance  of  the  type  of 
'beauty  that  turns  up  in  that  type  of  place.  He  has  heard 
so  much  about  the  purely  commercial  North  as  against 
the  agricultural  and  aristocratic 'South,  and  the  traditions 
of  Boston  and  Phildelphia  are  rather  too  tenuous  and 
delicate  to  be  seen  from  across  the  Atlantic.  But  here 
also  there  are  traditions  and  a  great  deal  of  tradi 
tionalism.  The  circle  of  old  families,  which  still  meets 
with  a  certain  exclusiveness  in  Philadelphia,  is  the  sort 


74  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  thing  that  we  in  England  should  expect  to  find  rather 
in  New  Orleans.  The  academic  aristocracy  of  Boston, 
which  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  called  the  Brahmins,  is  still 
a  reality  though  it  was  always  a  minority  and  is  now  a 
very  small  minority.  An  epigram,  invented  by  Yale  at 
the  expense  of  Harvard,  describes  it  as  very  small  in 
deed  : — 

Here  is  to  jolly  old  Boston,  the  home  of  the  bean  and  the 

cod, 
Where  Cabots  speak  only  to  Lowells,  and  Lowells  speak 

only  to  God. 

But  an  aristocracy  must  be  a  minority,  and  it  is  arguable 
that  the  smaller  it  is  the  better.  I  am  bound  to  say, 
however,  that  the  distinguished  Dr.  Cabot,  the  present 
representative  of  the  family,  broke  through  any  taboo 
that  may  tie  his  affections  to  his  Creator  and  to  Miss 
Amy  Lowell,  and  broadened  his  sympathies  so  indis 
criminately  as  to  show  kindness  and  hospitality  to  so 
lost  a  being  as  an  English  lecturer.  But  if  the  thing 
is  hardly  a  limit  it  is  very  living  as  a  memory;  and 
Boston  on  this  side  is  very  much  a  place  of  memories. 
It  would  be  paying  it  a  very  poor  compliment  merely 
to  say  that  parts  of  it  reminded  me  of  England;  for 
indeed  they  reminded  me  of  English  things  that  have 
largely  vanished  from  England.  There  are  old  brown 
houses  in  the  corners  of  squares  and  streets  that  are 
like  glimpses  of  a  man's  forgotten  childhood;  and  when 
I  saw  the  log  path  with  posts  where  the  Autocrat  may 
be  supposed  to  have  walked  with  the  schoolmistress, 
I  felt  I  had  come  to  the  land  where  old  tales  come  true. 
I  pause  in  this  place  upon  this  particular  aspect  of 
America  because  it  is  very  much  missed  in  a  mere  con- 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  75 

trast  with  England.  I  need  not  say  that  if  I  felt  it 
even  about  slight  figures  of  fiction,  I  felt  it  even  more 
about  solid  figures  of  history.  Such  ghosts  seemed  par 
ticularly  solid  in  the  Southern  States,  precisely  because 
of  the  comparative  quietude  and  leisure  of  the  atmos 
phere  of  the  South.  It  was  never  more  vivid  to  me 
than  when  coming,  at  a  quiet  hour  of  the  night,  into  the 
comparatively  quiet  hotel  at  Nashville  in  Tennessee,  and 
mounting  to  a  dim  and  deserted  upper  floor  where  I 
found  myself  before  a  faded  picture ;  and  from  the  dark 
canvas  looked  forth  the  face  of  Andrew  Jackson,  watch 
ful  like  a  white  eagle. 

At  that  moment,  perhaps,  I  was  in  more  than  one 
sense  alone.  Most  Englishmen  know  a  good  deal  of 
American  fiction,  and  nothing  whatever  of  American 
history.  They  know  more  about  the  autocrat  of  the 
breakfast-table  than  about  the  autocrat  of  the  army  and 
the  people,  the  one  great  democratic  despot  of  modern 
times;  the  Napoleon  of  the  New  World.  The  only 
notion  the  English  public  ever  got  about  American  politics 
they  got  from  a  novel,  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin;  and  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  it  was  no  exception  to  the  prevalence 
of  fiction  over  fact.  Hundreds  of  us  have  heard  of  Tom 
Sawyer  for  one  who  had  heard  of  Charles  Sumner;  and 
it  is  probable  that  most  of  us  could  pass  a  more  detailed 
examination  about  Toddy  and  Budge  than  about  Lincoln 
and  Lee.  But  in  the  case  of  Andrew  Jackson  it  may  be 
that  I  felt  a  special  sense  of  individual  isolation;  for 
I  believe  that  there  are  even  fewer  among  Englishmen 
than  among  Americans  who  realise  that  the  energy  of 
that  great  man  was  largely  directed  towards  saving  us 
from  the  chief  evil  which  destroys  the  nations  to-day. 
He  sought  to  cut  down,  as  with  a  sword  of  simplicity, 


76  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  new  and  nameless  enormity  of  finance;  and  he  must 
have  known,  as  by  a  lightning  flash,  that  the  people  were 
behind  him,  because  all  the  politicians  were  against  him. 
The  end  of  that  struggle  is  not  yet;  but  if  the  bank  is 
stronger  than  the  sword  or  the  sceptre  of  popular  sov 
ereignty,  the  end  will  be  the  end  of  democracy.  It  will 
have  to  choose  between  accepting  an  acknowledged  dic 
tator  and  accepting  dictation  which  it  dare  not  acknowl 
edge.  The  process  will  have  begun  by  giving  power  to 
people  and  refusing  to  give  them  their  titles;  and  it 
will  have  ended  by  giving  the  power  to  people  who  refuse 
to  give  us  their  names. 

But  I  have  a  special  reason  for  ending  this  chapter 
on  the  name  of  the  great  popular  dictator  who  made 
war  on  the  politicians  and  the  financiers.  This  chapter 
does  not  profess  to  touch  on  one  in  twenty  of  the 
interesting  cities  of  America,  even  in  this  particular 
aspect  of  their  relation  to  the  history  of  America,  which 
is  so  much  neglected  in  England.  If  that  were  so,  there 
would  be  a  great  deal  to  say  even  about  the  newest  of 
them ;  Chicago,  for  instance,  is  certainly  something  more 
than  the  mere  pork-packing  yard  that  English  tradition 
suggests;  and  it  has  been  building  a  boulevard  not  un 
worthy  of  its  splendid  position  on  its  splendid  lake. 
But  all  these  cities  are  defiled  and  even  diseased  with  in 
dustrialism.  It  is  due  to  the  Americans  to  remember  that 
they  have  deliberately  preserved  one  of  their  cities  from 
such  defilement  and  such  disease.  And  that  is  the  pres 
idential  city,  which  stands  in  the  American  mind  for 
the  same  ideal  as  the  President;  the  idea  of  the  Republic 
that  rises  above  modern  money-making  and  endures. 
There  has  really  been  an  effort  to  keep  the  White  House 
white.  No  factories  are  allowed  in  that  town;  no  more 


SOME  AMERICAN  CITIES  77 

than  the  necessary  shops  are  tolerated.  It  is  a  beautiful 
city;  and  really  retains  something  of  that  classical 
serenity  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  which  the  Fathers 
of  the  Republic  moved.  With  all  respect  to  the  colonial 
place  of  that  name,  I  do  not  suppose  that  Wellington 
is  particularly  like  Wellington.  But  Washington  really 
is  like  Washington. 

In  this,  as  in  so  many  things,  there  is  no  harm  in  our 
criticising  foreigners,  if  only  we  would  also  criticise 
ourselves.  In  other  words,  the  world  might  need  even 
less  of  its  new  charity,  if  it  had  a  little  more  of  the  old 
humility.  When  we  complain  of  American  individual 
ism,  we  forget  that  we  have  fostered  it  by  ourselves 
having  far  less  of  this  impersonal  ideal  of  the  Republic 
or  commonwealth  as  a  whole.  When  we  complain,  very 
justly,  for  instance,  of  great  pictures  passing  into  the 
possession  of  American  magnates,  we  ought  to  remember 
that  we  paved  the  way  for  it  by  allowing  them  all  to 
accumulate  in  the  possession  of  English  magnates.  It 
is  bad  that  a  public  treasure  should  be  in  the  possession 
of  a  private  man  in  America,  but  we  took  the  first  step  ini 
lightly  letting  it  disappear  into  the  private  collection  of 
a  man  in  England.  I  know  all  about  the  genuine  na 
tional  tradition  which  treated  the  aristocracy  as  constitut 
ing  the  state ;  but  these  very  foreign  purchases  go  to  prove 
that  we  ought  to  have  had  a  state  independent  of  the 
aristocracy.  It  is  true  that  rich  Americans  do  some 
times  covet  the  monuments  of  our  culture  in  a  fashion 
that  rightly  revolts  us  as  vulgar  and  irrational.  They 
are  said  sometimes  to  want  to  take  whole  buildings  away 
with  them;  and  too  many  of  such  buildings  are  private 
and  for  sale.  There  were  wilder  stories  of  a  millionaire 
wishing  to  transplant  Glastonbury  Abbey  and  similar 


78  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

buildings  as  if  they  were  portable  shrubs  in  pots.  It  is 
obvious  that  it  is  nonsense  as  well  as  vandalism  to  sepa 
rate  Glastonbury  Abbey  from  Glastonbury.  I  can  un 
derstand  a  man  venerating  it  as  a  ruin ;  and  I  can  under 
stand  a  man  despising  it  as  a  rubbish-heap.  But  it  is 
senseless  to  insult  a  thing  in  order  to  idolatrise  it;  it  is 
meaningless  to  desecrate  the  shrine  in  order  to  worship 
the  stones.  That  sort  of  thing  is  the  bad  side  of  Ameri 
can  appetite  and  ambition;  and  we  are  perfectly  right 
to  see  it  not  only  as  a  deliberate  blasphemy  but  as  an 
unconscious  buffoonery.  But  there  is  another  side  to 
the  American  tradition,  which  is  really  too  much  lacking 
in  our  own  tradition.  And  it  is  illustrated  in  this  idea 
of  preserving  Washington  as  a  sort  of  paradise  of  im 
personal  politics  without  personal  commerce.  Nobody 
could  buy  the  White  House  or  the  Washington  Monu 
ment;  it  may  be  hinted  (as  by  an  inhabitant  of  Glaston 
bury)  that  nobody  wants  to;  but  nobody  could  if  he  did 
want  to.  There  is  really  a  certain  air  of  serenity  and 
security  about  the  place,  lacking  in  every  other  American 
town.  It  is  increased,  of  course,  by  the  clear  blue  skies 
iof  that  half-southern  province,  from  which  smoke  has 
been  banished.  The  effect  is  not  so  much  in  the  mere 
buildings,  though  they  are  classical  and  often  beautiful. 
But  whatever  else  they  have  built,  they  have  built  a  great 
blue  dome,  the  largest  dome  in  the  world.  And  the  place 
does  express  something  in  the  inconsistent  idealism  of 
this  strange  people;  and  here  at  least  they  have  lifted  it 
higher  than  all  the  sky-scrapers,  and  set  it  in  a  stainless 
sky. 


IN   THE   AMERICAN    COUNTRY 

THE  sharpest  pleasure  of  a  traveller  is  in  finding 
the  things  which  he  did  not  expect,  but  which  he 
might  have  expected  to  expect.  I  mean  the 
things  that  are  at  once  so  strange  and  so  obvious  that 
they  must  have  been  noticed,  yet  somehow  they  have  not 
been  noted.  Thus  I  had  heard  a  thousand  things  about 
Jerusalem  before  I  ever  saw  it;  I  had  heard  rhapsodies 
and  disparagements  of  every  description.  Modern  ra 
tionalistic  critics,  with  characteristic  consistency,  had 
blamed  it  for  its  accumulated  rubbish  and  its  modern 
restoration,  for  its  antiquated  superstition  and  its  up-to- 
date  vulgarity.  But  somehow  the  one  impression  that 
had  never  pierced  through  their  description  was  the 
simple  and  single  impression  of  a  city  on  a  hill,  with 
walls  coming  to  the  very  edge  of  slopes  that  were  almost 
as  steep  as  walls ;  the  turreted  city  which  crowns  a  cone- 
shaped  hill  in  so  many  mediaeval  landscapes.  One  would 
suppose  that  this  was  at  once  the  plainest  and  most  pic 
turesque  of  all  the  facts ;  yet  somehow,  in  my  reading, 
I  had  always  lost  it  amid  a  mass  of  minor  facts  that  were 
merely  details.  We  know  that  a  city  that  is  set  upon  a 
hill  cannot  be  hid ;  and  yet  it  would  seem  that  it  is  exactly 
the  hill  that  is  hid ;  though  perhaps  it  is  only  hid  from  the 
wise  and  the  understanding.  I  had  a  similar  and  simple 
impression  when  I  discovered  America.  I  cannot  avoid 
the  phrase;  for  it  would  really  seem  that  each  man  dis 
covers  it  for  himself. 

Thus  I  had  heard  a  great  deal,  before  I  saw  them. 

79 


8o  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

about  the  tall  and  dominant  buildings  of  New  York. 
I  agree  that  they  have  an  instant  effect  on  the  imagina 
tion;  which  I  think  is  increased  by  the  situation  in  which 
they  stand,  and  out  of  which  they  arose.  They  are  all 
the  more  impressive  because  the  building,  while  it  is 
vertically  so  vast,  is  horizontally  almost  narrow.  New 
York  is  an  island,  and  has  all  the  intensive  romance 
of  an  island.  It  is  a  thing  of  almost  infinite  height 
upon  very  finite  foundations.  It  is  almost  like  a 
lofty  lighthouse  upon  a  lonely  rock.  But  this  story 
of  the  sky-scrapers,  which  I  had  often  heard,  would  by 
itself  give  a  curiously  false  impression  of  the  freshest 
and  most  curious  characteristic  of  American  architec 
ture.  Told  only  in  terms  of  these  great  towers  of 
stone  and  brick  in  the  big  industrial  cities,  the  story 
would  tend  too  much  to  an  impression  of  something 
cold  and  colossal  like  the  monuments  of  Asia.  It  would 
suggest  a  modern  Babylon  altogether  too  Babylonian.  It 
would  imply  that  a  man  of  the  new  world  was  a  sort  of 
new  Pharaoh,  who  built  not  so  much  a  pyramid  as  a 
pagoda  of  pyramids.  It  would  suggest  houses  built  by 
mammoths  out  of  mountains;  the  cities  reared  by 
elephants  in  their  own  elephantine  school  of  architec 
ture.  And  New  York  does  recall  the  most  famous  of  all 
sky-scrapers — the  tower  of  Babel.  She  recalls  it  none  the 
less  because  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  confusion  of 
tongues.  But  in  truth  the  very  reverse  is  true  of  most  of 
the  buildings  in  America.  I  had  no  sooner  passed  out 
into  the  suburbs  of  New  York  on  the  way  to  Boston 
than  I  began  to  see  something  else  quite  contrary  and  far 
more  curious.  I  saw  forests  tipon  forests  of  small 
houses  stretching  away  to  the  horizon  as  literal  forests 
do;  villages  and  towns  and  cities.  And  they  were,  in 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY          81 

another  sense,  literally  like  forests.  They  were  all  made 
of  wood.  It  was  almost  as  fantastic  to  an  English  eye 
as  if  they  had  been  all  made  of  cardboard.  I  had  long 
outlived  the  silly  old  joke  that  referred  to  Americans  as 
if  they  all  lived  in  the  backwoods.  But,  in  a  sense,  if 
they  do  not  live  in  the  woods  they  are  not  yet  out  of  the 
wood,  / 

I  do  not  say  this  in  any  sense  as  a  censure.  As  it 
happens,  I  am  particularly  fond  of  wood.  Of  all  the 
superstitions  which  our  fathers  took  lightly  enough  to 
love,  the  most  natural  seems  to  me  the  notion  it  is  lucky 
to  touch  wood.  Some  of  them  affect  me  the  less  as 
superstitions,  because  I  feel  them  as  symbols.  If 
humanity  had  really  thought  Friday  unlucky  it  would 
have  talked  about  bad  Friday  instead  of  good  Friday. 
And  while  I  feel  the  thrill  of  thirteen  at  a  table,  I  am 
not  so  sure  that  it  is  the  most  miserable  of  all  human  fates 
to  fill  the  places  of  the  Twelve  Apostles.  But  the  idea 
that  there  was  something  cleansing  or  wholesome  about 
the  touching  of  wood  seems  to  me  one  of  those  ideas 
which  are  truly  popular,  because  they  are  truly  poetic. 
It  is  probable  enough  that  the  conception  came  originally 
from  the  healing  of  the  wood  of  the  Cross ;  but  that  only 
clinches  the  divine  coincidence.  It  is  like  that  other 
divine  coincidence  that  the  Victim  was  a  carpenter,  who 
might  almost  have  made  His  own  cross.  Whether  we 
take  the  mystical  or  the  mythical  explanation,  there  is 
obviously  a  very  deep  connection  between  the  human 
working  in  wood  and  such  plain  and  pathetic  mysticism. 
It  gives  something  like  a  touch  of  the  holy  childishness  to 
the  tale,  as  if  that  terrible  engine  could  be  a  toy.  In  the 
same  fashion  a  child  fancies  that  mysterious  and  sinister 
horse,  which  was  the  downfall  of  Troy,  as  something 


82  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

plain  and  staring,  and  perhaps  spotted,  like  his  own  rock 
ing-horse  in  the  nursery. 

f  If  might  be  said  symbolically  that  Americans  have  a 
taste  for  rocking-horses,  as  they  certainly  have  a  taste 
for  rocking-chairs.  A  flippant  critic  might  suggest  that 
they  select  rocking-chairs  so  that,  even  when  they  are 
sitting  down,  they  neeid  not  be  sitting  still.  Something 
of  this  restlessness  in  the  race  may  really  be  involved  in 
the  matter;  but  I  think  the  deeper  significance  of  the 
rocking-chair  may  still  be  found  in  the  deeper  symbolism 
of  the  rocking-horse.  I  think  there  is  behind  all  this 
fresh  and  facile  use  of  wood  a  certain  spirit  that  is 
childish  in  the  good  sense  of  the  word;  something  that 
is  innocent,  and  easily  pleased.  It  is  not  altogether  un 
true,  still  less  is  it  unamiable,  to  say  that  the  landscape 
seems  to  be  dotted  with  dolls'  houses.  It  is  the  true 
tragedy  of  every  fallen  son  of  Adam  that  he  has  grown 
too  big  to  live  in  a  dolls'  house.  These  things  seem 
somehow  to  escape  the  irony  of  time  by  not  even  chal 
lenging  it ;  they  are  too  temporary  even  to  be  merely  tem 
poral.  These  people  are  not  building  tombs;  they  are 
not,  as  in  the  fine  image  of  Mrs.  Meynell's  poem,  merely 
building  ruins.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  the  ruins  of  a 
dolls'  house;  and  that  is  why  a  dolls'  house  is  an  ever 
lasting  habitation.  How  far  it  promises  a  political  per 
manence  is  a  matter  for  further  discussion;  I  am  only 
describing  the  mood  of  discovery;  in  which  all  these 
cottages  built  of  lath,  like  the  palaces  of  a  pantomime, 
really  seemed  coloured  like  the  clouds  of  morning; 
which  are  both  fugitive  and  eternal. 

There  is  also  in  all  this  an  atmosphere  that  comes  in 
another  sense  from  the  nufsery.  We  hear  much  of 
Americans  being  educated  on  English  literature;  but  I 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  83 

think  few  Americans  realise  how  much  English  children 
have  been  educated  on  American  literature.  It  is  true, 
and  it  is  inevitable,  that  they  can  only  be  educated  on 
rather  old-fashioned  American  literature.  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw,  in  one  of  his  plays,  noted  truly  the  limitations  of 
the  young  American  millionaire,  and  especially  the  stale- 
ness  of  his  English  culture;  but  there  is  necessarily 
another  side  to  it.  If  the  American  talked  more  of 
Macaulay  than  of  Nietzsche,  we  should  probably  talk 
more  of  Emerson  than  of  Ezra  Pound.  Whether  this 
staleness  is  necessarily  a  disadvantage  is,  of  course,  a 
different  question.  But,  in  any  case,  it  is  true  that  the 
old  American  books  were  often  the  books  of  our  child 
hood,  even  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  books  of  our  nurs 
ery.  I  know  few  men  in  England  who  have  not  left 
t'heir  boyhood  to  some  extent  lost  and  entangled  in  the 
forests  of  Huckleberry  Finn.  I  know  few  women  in 
England,  from  the  most  revolutionary  Suffragette  to  the 
most  carefully  preserved  Early  Victorian,  who  will  not 
confess  to  having  passed  a  happy  childhood  with  the 
'Little  Women  of  Miss  Alcott.  Helen's  Babies  was  the 
first  and  by  far  the  best  book  in  the  modern  scriptures 
of  baby-worship.  And  about  all  this  old-fashioned 
American  literature  there  was  an  undefinable  savour  that 
satisfied,  and  even  pleased,  our  growing  minds.  Per 
haps  it  was  the  smell  of  growing  things;  but  I  am  far 
from  certain  that  it  was  not  simply  the  smell  of  wood. 
Now  that  all  the  memory  comes  back  to  me,  it  seems  to 
come  back  heavy  in  a  hundred  forms  with  the  fragrance 
and  the  touch  of  timber.  There  was  the  perpetual  ref 
erence  to  the  wood-pile,  the  perpetual  background  of  the 
woods.  There  was  something  crude  and  clean  about 
everything;  something  fresh  and  strange  about  those 


84  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA      ;3. 

far-off  houses,  to  which  I  could  not  then  have  put  a  name. 
Indeed,  many  things  become  clear  in  this  wilderness  of 
wood,  which  could  only  be  expressed  in  symbol  and  even 
in  fantasy.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  short 
ened  the  transition  from  Log  Cabin  to  White  House;  as 
if  the  White  House  were  itself  made  of  white  wood 
(as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  said),  'that  cuts  like  cheese, 
but  lasts  like  iron  for  things  like  these.'  But  I  will  say 
that  the  experience  illuminates  some  other  lines  by 
Holmes  himself: — 

Little  I  ask,  my  wants  are  few, 
I  only  ask  a  hut  of  stone. 

I  should  not  have  known,  in  England,  that  he  was  al 
ready  asking  for  a  good  deal  even  in  asking  for  that.  In 
the  presence  of  this  wooden  world  the  very  combination 
of  words  seems  almost  a  contradiction,  like  a  hut  of 
marble,  or  a  hovel  of  gold. 

It  was  therefore  with  an  almost  infantile  pleasure  that 
I  looked  at  all  this  promising  expansion  of  fresh-cut 
timber  and  thought  of  the  housing  shortage  at  home,  I 
know  not  by  what  incongruous  movement  of  the  mind 
there  swept  across  me,  at  the  same  moment,  the  thought 
of  things  ancestral  and  hoary  with  the  light  of  ancient 
dawns.  The  last  war  brought  back  body-arrnour ;  the 
next  war  may  bring  back  bows  and  arrows.  And  I 
suddenly  had  a  memory  of  old  wooden  houses  in  Lon 
don;  and  a  model  of  Shakespeare's  town. 

It  is  possible  indee'd  that  such  Elizabethan  memories 
may  receive  a  check  or  a  chill  when  the  traveller  comes, 
as  he  sometimes  does,  to  the  outskirts  of  one  of  these 
strange  hamlets  of  new  frame-houses,  and  is  confronted 
with  a  placard  inscribed  in  enormous  letters,  Watch  Us 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  85 

Grow.'  He  can  always  imagine  that  he  sees  the  timbers 
swelling  before  his  eyes  like  pumpkins  in  some  super- 
tropical  summer.  But  he  may  have  formed  the  convic 
tion  that  no  such  proclamation  could  be  found  outside 
Shakespeare's  toWn.  And  indeed  there  is  a  serious  criti 
cism  here,  to  any  one  who  knows  history;  since  the  things 
that  grow  are  not  always  the  things  that  remain;  and 
pumpkins  of  that  expansiveness  have  a  tendency  to  burst. 
I  was  always  told  that  Americans  were  harsh,  hustling, 
rather  rude  and  perhaps  vulgar;  but  they  were  very 
practical  and  the  future  belonged  to  them.  I  confess  I 
felt  a  fine  shade  of  difference ;  I  liked  the  Americans ;  I 
thought  they  were  sympathetic,  imaginative,  and  full  of 
fine  enthusiasms;  the  one  thing  I  could  not  always  feel 
clear  about  was  their  future.  I  believe  they  were  happier 
in  their  frame-houses  than  most  people  in  most  houses; 
having  democracy,  good  education,  and  a  hobby  of  work; 
the  one  doubt  that  did  float  across  me  was  something  like, 
'Will  all  this  be  here  at  all  in  two  hundred  years  ?'  That 
was  the  first  impression  produced  by  the  wooden  houses 
that  seemed  like  the  waggons  of  gipsies;  it  is  a  serious 
impression,  but  there  is  an  answer  to  it.  It  is  an  answer 
that  opens  on  the  traveller  more  and  more  as  he 
goes  westward,  and  finds  the  little  towns'  dotted  about 
the  vast  central  prairies.  And  the  answer  is  agriculture. 
Wooden  houses  may  or  may  not  last ;  but  farms  will  last ; 
and  farming  will  always  last. 

The  houses  may  look  like  gipsy  caravans  on  a  heath  or 
common ;  but  they  are  not  on  a  heath  or  common.  They 
are  on  the  most  productive  and  prosperous  land,  perhaps, 
in  the  modern  world.  The  houses  might  fall  down  like 
shanties,  but  the  fields  would  remain;  and  whoever  tills 
those  fields  will  count  for  a  great  deal  in  the  affairs  of 


86  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

humanity.  They  are  already  counting  for  a  great  deal, 
and  possibly  for  too  much,  in  the  affairs  of  America. 
The  real  criticism  of  the  Middle  West  is  concerned  with 
two  facts,  neither  of  which  has  been  yet  adequately  ap 
preciated  by  the  educated  class  in  England.  The  first  is 
that  the  turn  of  the  world  has  come,  and  the  turn  of  the 
agricultural  countries  with  it.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
the  resurrection  of  Ireland;  that  is  the  meaning  of 
the  practical  surrender  of  the  Bolshevist  Jews  to  the  Rus 
sian  peasants.  The  other  is  that  in  most  places  these 
peasant  societies  carry  on  what  may  be  called  the  Catholic 
tradition.  The  Middle  West  is  perhaps  the  one  consid 
erable  place  where  they  still  carry  on  the  Puritan  tra 
dition.  But  the  Puritan  tradition  was  originally  a  tra 
dition  of  the  town ;  and  the  second  truth  about  the  Middle 
West  turns  largely  on  its  moral  relation  to  the  town.  As 
I  shall  suggest  presently,  there  is  much  in  common  be 
tween  this  agricultural  society  of  America  and  the  great 
agricultural  societies  of  Europe.  It  tends,  as  the  agri 
cultural  society  nearly  always  does,  to  some  decent  degree 
of  democracy.  The  agricultural  society  tends  to  the 
agrarian  law.  But  in  Puritan  America  there  is  an  addi 
tional  problem,  which  I  can  hardly  explain  without  a  peri 
phrasis. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  progress  of  the  cities 
seemed  to  mock  the  decay  of  the  country.  It  is  more 
and  more  true,  I  think,  to-day  that  it  is  rather  the  decay 
of  'the  cities  that  seems  to  poison  the  progress  and  prom 
ise  of  the  countryside.  The  cinema  boasts  of  being  a 
substitute  for  the  tavern,  but  I  think  it  a  very  bad  sub 
stitute.  I  think  so  quite  apart  from  the  question  about 
fermented  liquor.  Nobody  enjoys  cinemas  more  than  I, 
but  to  enjoy  them  a  man  has  only  to  look  and  not  even 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  87 

to  listen,  and  in  a  .tavern  he  has  to  talk.  Occasionally,  I 
admit,  he  has  to  fight;  but  he  need  never  move  at  the 
movies.  Thus  in  the  real  village  inn  are  the  real  village 
politics,  while  in  the  other  are  only  the  remote  and  unreal 
metropolitan  politics.  And  those  central  city  politics 
are  not  only  cosmopolitan  politics  but  corrupt  politics. 
They  corrupt  everything  that  they  reach,  and  this  is  the 
real  point  about  many  perplexing  questions*. 

For  instance,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  it  is  the  whole 
point  about  feminism  and  the  factory.  It  is  very 
largely  the  point  about  feminism  and  many  other  callings, 
apparently  more  cultured  than  the  factory,  such  as  the 
law  court  and  the  political  platform.  When  I  see 
women  so  wildly  anxious  to  tie  themselves  to  all  this 
machinery  of  the  modern  city  my  first  feeling  is  not  in 
dignation,  but  that  dark  and  ominous  sort  of  pity  with 
which  we  should  see  a  crowd  rushing  to  embark  in  a  leak 
ing  ship  under  a  lowering  storm.  When  I  see  wives  and 
mothers  going  in  for  business  government  I  not  only  re 
gard  it  as  a  bad  business  but  as  a  bankrupt  business.  It 
seems  to  me  very  much  as  if  the  peasant  women,  just  be 
fore  the  French  revolution,  had  insisted  on  being  made 
duchesses  or  (as  is  quite  as  logical  and  likely)  on  being 
made  dukes. 

It  is  as  if  those  ragged  women,  instead  of  crying  out 
for  bread,  had  cried  out  for  powder  and  patches.  By  the 
time  they  were  wearing  them  they  would  be  the  only 
people  wearing  them.  For  powder  and  patches  soon 
went  out  of  fashion,  but  bread  does  not  go  out  of  fashion. 
In  the  same  way,  if  women  desert  the  family  for  the  fac 
tory,  they  may  find  they  have  only  done  it  for  a  deserted 
factory.  It  would  have  been  very  unwise  of  the  lower 
orders  to  claim  all  the  privileges  of  the  higher  orders  in 


88  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  last  days  of  the  French  monarchy.  It  would  have 
been  very  laborious  to  learn  the  science  of  heraldry  or  the 
tables  of  precedence  when  all  such  things  were  at  once 
most  complicated  and  most  moribund.  It  would  be  tire 
some  to  be  taught  all  those  tricks  just  when  the  whole  bag 
of  tricks  was  coming  to  an  end.  A  French  satirist  might 
have  written  a  fine  apologue  about  Jacques  Bonhomme 
coming  up  to  Paris  in  his  wooden  shoes  and  demanding 
to  be  made  Gold  Stick  in  Waiting  in  the  name  of  Liberty, 
Equality,  and  Fraternity;  but  I  fear  the  stick  in  waiting 
would  be  waiting  still. 

One  of  the  first  topics  on  which  I  heard  a  conversation 
turning  in  America  was  that  of  a,  very  interesting  book 
called  Main  Street,  which  involves  many  of  these  ques 
tions  of  the  modern  industrial  and  eternal  feminine.  It 
is  simply  the  story,  or  perhaps  rather  the  study  than  the 
story,  of  a  young  married  woman  in  one  of  the  multi 
tudinous  little  towns  on  the  great  central  plains  of  Amer 
ica;  and  of  a  sort  of  struggle  between  her  own  more  rest 
less  culture  and  the  provincial  prosperity  of  her  neigh 
bours.  There  are  a  number  of  true  and  telling  sugges 
tions  in  the  book,  but  the  one  touch  which  I  found  tin 
gling  in  the  memory  of  many  readers  was  the  last  sen 
tence,  in  which  the  master  of  the  house,  with  unshaken 
simplicity,  merely  asks  for  the  whereabouts  of  some 
domestic  implement;  I  think  it  was  a  screw-driver.  It 
seems  to  me  a  harmless  request,  but  from  the  way  people 
talked  about  it  one  might  suppose  he  had  asked  for  a 
screw-driver  to  screw  down  the  wife  in  her  comn.  And 
a  great  many  advanced  persons  would  tell  us  that  the 
wooden  house  in  which  she  lived  really  was  'like  a  wooden 
coffin.  But  this  appears  to  me  to  be  taking  a  somewhat 
funereal  view  of  the  life  of  humanity. 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  89 

For,  after  all,  on  the  face  of  it  at  any  rate,  this  is 
merely  the  life  of  humanity,  and  even  the  life  which  all 
humanitarians  have  striven  to  give  to  humanity.  Revo 
lutionists  have  treated  it  not  only  as  the  normal  but  even 
as  the  ideal.  Revolutionary  wars  have  been  waged  to 
establish  this;  revolutionary  heroes  have  fought,  and 
revolutionary  martyrs  have  died,  only  to  build  such 
a  wooden  house  for  such  a  worthy  family.  Men  have 
taken  the  sword  and  perished  by  the  sword  in  order  that 
the  poor  gentleman  might  have  liberty  to  look  for  his 
screw-driver.  For  there  is  here  a  fact  abouj^America 
that  is  almost  entirely  unknown  in  England.  TThe  Eng 
lish  have  not  in  the  least  realised  the  real  strength  of 
America.  We  fa  England  hear  a  great  deal,  we  hear 
far  too  much,  about  the  economic  energy  of  industrial 
America,  about  the  money  of  Mr.  Morgan,  or  the 
machinery  of  Mr.  Edison.  We  never  realise  that  while 
we  in  England  suffer  from  the  same  sort  of  successes 
in  capitalism  and  clockwork,  we  have  not  got  what  the 
Americans  have  got;  something  at  least  to  balance  it 
in  the  way  of  a  free  agriculture,  a  vast  field  of  free  farms 
dotted  with  small  freeholders.  For  the  reason  I  shall 
mention  in  a  moment,  they  are  not  perhaps  in  the  fullest 
and  finest  sense  a  peasantry.  But  they  are  in  the  prac 
tical  and  political  sense  a  pure  peasantry,  in  that  their 
comparative  equality  is  a  true  counterweight  to  the  top 
pling  injustice  to  the  towns/; 

And,  even  in  places  like  tnat  described  as  Main  Street, 
that  comparative  equality  can  immediately  be  felt.  The 
men  may  be  provincials,  but  they  are  certainly  citizens; 
they  consult  on  a  common  basis.  And  I  repeat  that  in 
this,  after  all,  they  do  achieve  what  many  prophets  and 
righteous  men  have  died  to  achieve.  This  plain  village, 


90  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

fairly  prosperous,  fairly  equal,  untaxed  by  tyrants  and 
untroubled  by  wars,  is  after  all  the  place  which  reformers 
have  regarded  as  their  aim;  whenever  reformers  have 
used  their  wits  sufficiently  to  have  any  aim.  The  march 
to  Utopia,  the  march  to  the  Earthly  Paradise,  the  march 
to  the  New  Jerusalem,  has  been  very  largely  the  march 
to  Main  Street.  And  the  latest  modern  sensation  is  a 
book  written  to  show  how  wretched  it  is  to  live  there. 

All  this  is  true,  and  I  think  the  lady  might  be  more 
contented  in  her  coffin,  which  is  more  comfortably  fur 
nished  than  most  of  the  coffins  where  her  fellow  crea 
tures  live.  Nevertheless,  there  is  an  answer  to  this,  or 
at  least  a  modification  of  it.  There  is  a  case  for  the 
lady  and  a  case  against  the  gentleman  and  the  screw 
driver.  And  when  we  have  noted  what  it  really  is  we 
have  noted  the  real  disadvantage  in  a  situation  like  that 
of  modern  America,  and  especially  the  Middle  West. 
And  with  that  we  come  back  to  the  truth  with  which  I 
started  this  speculation;  the  truth  that  few  have  yet 
realised,  but  of  which  I,  for  one,  am  more  and  more 
convinced — that  industrialism  is  spreading  because  it  is 
decaying;  that  only  the  dust  and  ashes  of  its  dissolution 
are  choking  up  the  growth  of  natural  things  everywhere 
and  turning  the  green  world  grey. 

In  this  relative  agricultural  equality  the  Americans  of 
the  Middle  West  are  far  in  advance  of  the  English  of 
the  twentieth  century.  It  is  not  their  fault  if  they  are 
still  some  centuries  behind  the  English  of  the  twelfth 
century.  But  the  defect  by  which  they  fall  short  of 
being  a  true  peasantry  is  that  they  do  not  produce  their 
town  spiritual  food,  in  the  same  sense  as  their  own 
material  food.  They  do  not,  like  some  peasantries,  create 
other  kinds  of  culture  besides  the  kind  called  agriculture. 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  91 

Their  culture  comes  from  the  great  cities;  and  that  is 
where  all  the  evil  comes  from. 

If  a  man  had  gone  across  England  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
or  even  across  Europe  in  more  recent  times,  he  would 
have  found  a  culture  which  showed  its  vitality  by  its 
variety.  We  know  the  adventures  of  the  three  brothers 
in  the  old  fairy  tales  who  passed  across  the  endless  plain 
from  city  to  city,  and  found  one  kingdom  ruled  by  a 
wizard  and  another  wasted  by  a  dragon,  one  people  liv 
ing  in  castles  of  crystal  and  another  sitting  by  fountains 
of  wine.  These  are  but  legendary  enlargements  of  the 
real  adventures  of  a  traveller  passing  from  one  patch  of 
peasantry  to  another  and  finding  women  wearing  strange 
head-dresses  and  men  singing  new  songs. 

A  traveller  in  America  would  be  somewhat  surprised  if 
he  found  the  people  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  all  wearing 
crowns  and  crusading  armour  in  honour  of  their  patron 
saint.  He  might  even  feel  some  faint  surprise  if  he 
found  all  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia  clad  in  a  composite 
costume,  combining  that  of  a  Quaker  with  that  of  a  Red 
Indian,  in  honour  of  the  noble  treaty  of  William  P'enn. 
Yet  these  are  the  sort  of  local  and  traditional  things  that 
would  really  be  found  giving  variety  to  the  valleys  of 
mediaeval  Europe.  I  myself  felt  a  perfectly  genuine 
and  generous  exhilaration  of  freedom  and  fresh  enter 
prise  in  new  places  like  Oklahoma.  But  you  would 
hardly  find  in  Oklahoma  what  was  found  in  Oberam- 
mergau.  What  goes  to  Oklahoma  is  not  the  peasant 
play,  but  the  cinema.  And  the  objection  to  the  cinema 
is  not  so  much  that  it  goes  to  Oklahoma  as  that  it  does 
not  come  from  Oklahoma.  In  other  words,  these  people 
have  on  the  economic  side  a  much  closer  approach  than 
we  have  to  economic  freedom.  It  is  not  for  us,  who 


92  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

have  allowed  our  land  to  be  stolen  by  squires  and  then 
vulgarized  by  sham  squires,  to  sneer  at  such  colonists  as 
merely  crude  and  prosaic.  They  at  least  have  really 
kept  something  of  the  simplicity  and,  therefore,  the  dig 
nity  of  democracy;  and  that  democracy  may  yet  save 
their  country  even  from  the  calamities  of  wealth  and 
science. 

But,  while  these  farmers  do  not  need  to  become  in 
dustrial  in  order  to  become  industrious,  they  do  tend  to 
become  industrial  in  so  far  as  they  become  intellectual. 
Their  culture,  and  to  some  great  extent  their  creed,  do 
come  along  the  railroads  from  the  great  modern  urban 
centres,  and  bring  with  them  a  blast  of  death  and  a  reek 
of  rotting  things.  It  is  that  influence  that  alone  pre 
vents  the  Middle  West  from  progressing  towards  the 
Middle  Ages. 

For,  after  all,  linked  up  in  a  hundred  legends  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  may  be  found  a  symbolic  pattern  of  ham 
mers  and  nails  and  saws;  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  not  have  also  sanctified  screw-drivers. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  screw-driver  that  seemed 
such  a  trifle  to  the  author  should  not  have  been  borne  in 
triumph  down  Main  Street  like  a  sword  of  state,  in  some 
pageant  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Joseph  of  the  Carpenters  or 
St.  Dunstan  of  the  Smiths.  It  was  the  Catholic  poetry 
and  piety  that  filled  common  life  with  something  that  is 
lacking  in  the  worthy  and  virile  democracy  of  the  West. 
Nor  are  Americans  of  intelligence  so  ignorant  of  this  as 
some  may  suppose.  There  is  an  admirable  society  called 
the  Mediaevalists  in  Chicago;  whose  name  and  address 
will  strike  many  as  suggesting  a  certain  struggle  of  the 
soul  against  the  environment.  With  the  national  hearti 
ness  they  blazon  their  note-paper  with  heraldry  and  the 


IN  THE  AMERICAN  COUNTRY  93 

hues  of  Gothic  windows;  with  the  national  high  spirits 
they  assume  the  fancy  dress  of  friars;  but  any  one  who 
should  essay  to  laugh  at  them  instead  of  with  them  would 
find  out  his  mistake.  For  many  of  them  do  really  know 
a  great  deal  about  mediaevalism ;  much  more  than  I  do, 
or  most  other  men  brought  up  on  an  island  that  is 
crowded  with  its  cathedrals.  Something  of  the  same 
spirit  may  be  seen  in  the  beautiful  new  plans  and  build 
ings  of  Yale,  deliberately  modelled  not  on  classical  har 
mony  but  on  Gothic  irregularity  and  surprise.  The 
grace  and  energy  of  the  mediaeval  architecture  resur 
rected  by  a  man  like  Professor  Cram  of  Boston  has  be 
hind  it  not  merely  artistic  but  historical  and  ethical  en 
thusiasm;  an  enthusiasm  for  the  Catholic  creed  which 
made  mediaeval  civilisation.  Even  on  the  huge  Puritan 
plains  of  Middle  West  the  influence  strays  in  the  strang 
est  fashion.  And  it  is  notable  that  among  the  pessimistic 
epitaphs  of  the  Spoon  River  Anthology,  in  that  church 
yard  compared  with  which  most  churchyards  are  cheery, 
among  the  suicides  and  secret  drinkers  and  monomaniacs 
and  hideous  hypocrites  of  that  happy  village,  almost  the 
only  record  of  respect  and  a  recognition  of  wider  hopes 
is  dedicated  to  the  Catholic  priest. 

But  Main  Street  is  Main  Street  in  the  main.  Main 
Street  is  Modern  Street  in  its  multiplicity  of  mildly  half- 
educated  people;  and  all  these  historic  things  are  a  thou 
sand  miles  from  them.  They  have  not  heard  the  ancient 
noise  either  of  arts  or  arms ;  the  building  of  the  cathe 
dral  or  the  marching  of  the  crusade.  But  at  least  they 
have  not  deliberately  slandered  the  crusade  and  defaced 
the  cathedral.  And  if  they  have  not  produced  the  pea 
sant  arts,  they  can  still  produce  the  peasant  crafts.  They 
can  sow  and  plough  and  reap  and  live  by  these  everlasting 


94  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

things ;  nor  shall  the  foundations  of  their4  state  be  moved. 
And  the  memory  of  those  colossal  fields,  of  those  fruitful 
deserts,  came  back  the  more  readily  into  my  mind  because 
I  finished  these  reflections  in  the  very  heart  of  a  modern 
industrial  city,  if  it  can  be  said  to  have  a  heart.  It  was  in 
fact  an  English  industrial  city,  but  it  struck  me  that  it 
might  very  well  be  an  American  one.  And  it  also  stfuck 
me  that  we  yield  rather  too  easily  to  America  the  dusty 
palm  of  industrial  enterprise,  and  feel  far  too  little  appre 
hension  about  greener  and  fresher  vegetables.  There  is  a 
story  of  an  American  who  carefully  studied  all  the  sights 
of  London  or  Rome  or  Paris,  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  'it  had  nothing  on  Minneapolis/  It  seems  to  me  that 
Minneapolis  has  nothing  on  Manchester.  There  were  the 
same  grey  vistas  of  shops  full  of  rubber  tyres  and  metallic 
appliances ;  a  man  felt  that  he  might  walk  a  day  without 
seeing  a  blade  of  grass;  the  whole  horizon  was  so  infi 
nite  with*  efficiency.  The  factory  chimneys  might  have 
been  Pittsburg ;  the  sky-signs  might  have  been  New  York. 
One  looked  up  in  a  sort  of  despair  at  the  sky,  not  for  a 
sky-sign  but  in  a  sense  for  a  sign,  for  some  sentence  of 
significance  and  judgment;. by  the  instinct  that  makes  any 
man  in  such  a  scene  seek  for  the  only  thing  that  has  not 
been  made  by  men.  But  even  that  was  illogical,  for  it  was 
night,  and  I  could  only  expect  to  see  the  stars,  which  might 
have  reminded*  me  of  Old  Glory ;  but  that  was  not  the  sign 
that  oppressed  me.  All  the  ground  was  a  wilderness  of 
stone  and  all  the  buildings  a  forest  of  brick;  I  was  far  in 
the  interior  of  a  labyrinth  of  lifeless  things.  Only,  look 
ing  up,  between  two  black  chimneys  and  a  telegraph  pole, 
I  saw  vast  and  far  and  faint,  as  the  first  men  saw  it,  the 
silver  pattern  of  the  Plough. 


THE   AMERICAN   BUSINESS    MAN 

IT  is  a  commonplace  that  men  are  all  agreed  in  using 
symbols,  and  all  differ  about  the  meaning  of  the 
symbols.  It  is  obvious  that  a  Russian  republican 
might  come  to  identify  the  eagle  as  a  bird  of  empire  and 
therefore  a  bird  of  prey.  But  when  he  .ultimately  escaped 
to  the  land  of  the  free,  he  might  find  the  same  bird  on 
the  American  coinage  figuring  as  a  bird  of  freedom. 
Doubtless,  he  might  find  many  other  things  to  surprise 
him  in  the  land  of  the  free,  and  many  calculated  to  make 
him  think  that  the  bird,  if  not  imperial,  was  at  least  rather 
imperious. 

But  I  am  not  discussing  those  exceptional  details  here. 
It  is  equally  obvious  that  a  Russian  reactionary  might 
cross  the  world  with  a  vow  of  vengeance  against  the  red 
flag.  But  that  authoritarian  might  have  some  difficulties 
with  the  authorities  if  he  shot  a  man  for  using  the  red 
flag  on  the  railway  between  Willesden  and  Clapham  Junc 
tion. 

But,  of  course,  the  difficulty  about  symbols  is  generally 
much  more  subtle  than  in  these  simple  cases.  I  have  re 
marked  elsewhere  that  the  first  thing  which  a  traveller 
should  write  about  is  the  thing  which  he  lias  not  read 
about.  It  may  be  a  small  or  secondary  thing,  but  it  is  a 
thing  that  he  has  seen  and  not  merely  expected  to  see. 

I  gave  the  example  of  the  great  multitude  of  wooden 
houses  in  America;  we  might  say  of  wooden  towns  and 
wooden  cities.  But  after  he  -has  seen  such  things,  his  next 
iduty  is  to  see  the  meaning  of  them ;  and  here  a  great  deal 

95 


96  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  complication  and  controversy  is  possible.  The  thing 
probably  does  not  mean  what  he  first  supposes  it  to  mean 
on  the  face  of  it ;  but  even  on  the  face  of  it,  it  might  mean 
many  different  and  even  opposite  things. 

For  instance,  a  wooden  house  might  suggest  an  almost 
savage  solitude ;  a  rude  shanty  put  together  by  a  pioneer  in 
a  forest;  or  it  might  mean  a  very  recent  and  rapid  solu 
tion  of  the  housing  problem,  conducted  cheaply  and  there 
fore  on  a  very  large  scale  A  wooden  house  might  sug 
gest  the  very  newest  thing  in  American  or  one  of  the 
very  oldest  things  in  England.  It  might  mean  a  grey 
ruin  at  Stratford  or  a  white  exhibition  at  Earl's  Court. 

It  is  when  we  come  to  this  interpretation  of  inter 
national  symbols  that  we  make  most  of  the  international 
mistakes.  Without  the  smallest  error  of  detail,  I  will 
promise  to  prove  -that  Oriental  women  are  independent 
because  they  wear  trousers,  or  Oriental  men  subject  be 
cause  they  wear  skirts.  Merely  to  apply  it  to  this  case,  I 
will  take  the  example  of  two  very  commonplace  and  trivial 
objects  of  modern  life — a  walking  stick  and  a  fur  coat. 

As  it  happened,  I  travelled  about  America  with  two 
sticks,  like  a  Japanese  nobleman  with  his  two  swords.  I 
fear  the  simile  is  too  stately.  I  bore  more  resemblance  to 
a  cripple  with  two  crutches  or  a  highly  ineffectual  version 
of  the  devil  on  two  sticks.  I  carried  them  both  because 
I  valued  them  both,  and  did  not  wish  to  risk  losing  either 
of  them  in  my  erratic  travels.  One  is  a  very  plain  grey 
stick  from  the  woods  of  Buckinghamshire,  but  as  I  took  it 
with  me  to  Palestine  it  partakes  of  the  character  of  a  pil 
grim's  staff.  When  I  can  say  that  I  have  taken  the  same 
stick  to  Jerusalem  and  to  Chicago,  I  think  the  stick  and  I 
may  both  have  a  rest.  The  other,  which  I  value  even 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN         97 

more,  was  given  me  by  the  Knights  of  Columbus  at  Yale, 
and  I  wish  I  could  think  that  their  .chivalric  title  allowed 
me  to  regard  it  as  a  sword. 

Now,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  Americans  I  met, 
struck  by  the  fastidious  foppery  of  my  dress  and  appear 
ance,  concluded  that  it  is  the  custom  of  elegant  English 
dandies  to  carry  two  walking  sticks.  But  I  do  know  that 
it  is  much  less  common  among  Americans  than  among 
Englishmen  to  carry  even  one.  The  point,  however,  is 
not  merely  that  more  sticks  are  carried  by  Englishmen 
than  by  Americans ;  it  is  that  the  sticks  which  are  carried 
by  Americans  stand  for  something  entirely  different. 

In  America  a  stick  is  commonly  called  a  cane,  and  it 
Jias  about  it  something  of  the  atmosphere  which  the  poet 
described  as  the  nice  conduct  of  the  clouded  cane.  It 
would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  when  the  citizens  of 
the  United  States  see  a  man  carrying  a  light  stick  they 
deduce  that  if  he  does  that  he  does  nothing  else.  But 
there  is  about  it  a  faint  flavour  of  luxury  and  lounging, 
and  most  of  the  energetic  citizens  of  this  energetic  society 
avoid  it  by  instinct. 

Now,  in  an  Englishman  like  myself,  carrying  a  stick 
may  imply  lounging,  but  it  does  not  imply  luxury,  and  I 
can  say  with  some  firmness  that  it  does  not  imply  dandy 
ism.  In  a  great  many  Englishmen  it  means  the  very 
opposite  even  of  lounging.  By.  one  of  those  fantastic 
paradoxes  which  are  the  mystery  of  nationality,  a  walk 
ing  stick  often  actually  means  walking.  It  frequently 
suggests  the  very  reverse  of  the  beau  with  his  clouded 
cane ;  it  does  not  suggest  a  town  type,  but  rathef  specially 
a  country  type.  It  rather  implies  the  kind  of  English 
man  who  tramps  about  in  lanes  and  meadows  and  knocks 


98  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  tops  off  thistles.  It  suggests  the  sort  of  man  who 
has  carried  the  stick  through  his  native  woods,  and  per 
haps  even  cut  it  in  his  native  woods. 

Now  there  are  plenty  of  these  vigorous  loungers,  no 
doubt,  in  the  rural  parts  of  America,  but  the  idea  of  a 
walking  stick  would  not  especially  suggest  them  to 
Americans ;  it  would  not  call  up  such  figures  like  a  fairy 
wand.  It  would  be  easy  ta  trace  back  the  difference  to 
many  English  origins,  possibly  to  aristocratic  origins,  to 
the  idea  of  the  old  squire,  a  man  vig'orous  and  even  rustic, 
but  trained  to  hold  a  useless  staff  rather  than  a  useful 
tool. 

It  might  be  suggested  that  American  citizens  do  at 
least  so  far  love  freedom  as  to  like  to  have  their  hands 
free.  It  might  be  suggested,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they 
keep  their  hands  for  the  handles  of  many  machines.  And 
that  the  hand  on  a  handle  is  less  free  than  the  hand  on 
a  stick  or  even  a  tool.  But  these  again  are  controversial 
questions  and  I  am  only  noting  a  fact. 

If  an  Englishman  wished  to  imagine  more  or  less 
exactly  what  the  impression  is,  and  how  misleading  it  is, 
he  could  find  something  like  a  parallel  in  what  he  himself 
feels  about  a  fur  coat.  When  I  first  found  myself  among 
the  crowds  on  the  main  floor  of  a  New  York  hotel,  my 
rather  exaggerated  impression  of  the  luxury  of  the  place 
was  largely  produced  by  the  number  of  men  in  fur  coats, 
and  what  we  should  consider  rather  ostentatious  fur 
coats,  with  all  the  fur  outside. 

Now  an  Englishman  has  a  number  of  atmospheric  but 
largely  accidental  associations  in  connection  with  a  fur 
coat.  I  will  not  say  that  he  thinks  a  man  in  a  fur  coat 
must  be  a  wealthy  and  wicked  man ;  but  I  do  say  that  in 
his  own  ideal  and  perfect  vision  a  wealthy  and  wicked 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN         99 

man  would  wear  a  fur  coat,  Thus  I  had  the  sensation 
of  standing  in  a  surging  mob  of  American  millionaires, 
or  even  African  millionaires;  for  the  millionaires  of 
Chicago  must  be  like  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table 
compared  with  the  millionaires  of  Johannesburg, 

B'ut,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  man  in  the  fur  coat  was 
not  even  an  American  millionaire,  but  simply  an  Ameri 
can.  It  did  not  signify  luxury,  but  rather  necessity,  and 
even  a  harsh  and  almost  heroic  necessity.  Orson  prob 
ably  wore  a  fur  coat;  and  he  was  brought  up  by  bears, 
but  not  the  bears  of  Wall  Street.  Eskimos  are  generally 
represented  as  a  furry  folk;  but  they  are  not  necessarily 
engaged  in  delicate  financial  operations,  even  in  the  typical 
and  appropriate  occupation  called  freezing  out.  And  if 
the  American  is  not  exactly  an  arctic  traveller  rushing 
from  pole  to  pole,  at  least  he  is  often  literally  fleeing  from 
ice  to  ice.  He  has  to  make  a  very  extreme  distinction  be 
tween  outdoor  and  indoor  clothing.  He  has  to  live  in  an 
icehouse  outside  and  a  hothouse  inside ;  so  hot  that  he  may 
be  said  to  construct  an  icehouse  inside  that.  He  turns 
himself  into  an  icehouse  and  warms  himself  against  the 
cold  until  he  is  warm  enough  to  eat  ices.  But  the  point 
is  that  the  same  coat  of  fur  which  in  England  would  in 
dicate  the  sybarite  life  may  here  very  well  indicate  strenu 
ous  life;  just  as  the  same  walking  stick  which  would  here 
suggest  a  lounger  would  in  England  suggest  a  plodder 
and  almost  a  pilgrim. 

Now  these  two  trifles  are  types  -which  I  should  like 
to  put,  by  way  of  proviso  and  apology,  at  the  very  begin 
ning  of  any  attempt  at  a  record  of  any  impressions  of  a 
foreign  society.  They  serve  merely  to  illustrate  the  most 
important  impression  of  all,  the  impression  of  how  false 
all  impressions  may  be.  I  suspect  that  most  of  the  very 


ioo  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

false  impressions  have  come  from  careful  record  of  very 
true  facts.  They  have  come  from  the  fatal  power  of 
observing  the  facts  without  being  able  to  observe  the 
truth.  They  came  from  seeing  the  symbol  with  the  most 
vivid  clarity  and  being  blind  to  all  that  it  symbolises. 

It  is  as  if  a  man  who  knew  no  Greek  should  imagine 
that  he  could  read  a  Greek  inscription  because  he  took  the 
Greek  R  for  an  English  P  or  the  Greek  long  E  for  an 
English  H.  I  do  not  mention  this  merely  as  a  criticism 
o'n  other  people's  impressions  of  America,  but  as  a  criti 
cism  on  my  own.  I  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  I  am 
well  aware  that  all  my  views  are  subject  to  this  sort  of 
potential  criticism,  and  that  even  when  I  am  certain  of  the 
facts  I  do  not  profess  to  be  certain  of  the  deductions. 

In  this  chapter  I  hope  to  point  out  how  a  misunder 
standing  of  this  kind  affects  the  common  impression, 
not  altogether  unfounded,  that  the  Americans  talk  about 
dollars.  But  for  the  -moment  I  am  merely  anxious  to 
avoid  a  similar  misunderstanding  when  I  talk  abottt 
Americans.  About  the  dogmas  of  democracy,  about 
the  right  of  a  people  to  its  own  symbols,  whether  they  be 
coins  or  customs,  I  am  convinced,  and  no  longer  to  be 
shaken.  But  about  the  meaning  of  those  symbols,  in 
silver  or  other  substances,  I  am  always  open  to  correction. 
That  error  is  the  price  we  pay  for  the  great  glory  of 
nationality.  And  in  this  sense  I  am  quite  ready,  at  the 
start,  to  warn  my  own  readers  against  my  own  opinions. 
/  The  fact  without  the  truth  is  futile;  indeed  the  fact 
without  the  truth  is  false.  I  have  already  noted  that 
this  is  especially  true  touching  our  observations  of  a 
strange  country;  and  it  is  certainly  true  touching  one 
small  fact  which  has  swelled  into  a  large  fable.  I  mean 
the  fable  about  America  commonly  summed  up  in  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN-      101 

phrase  about  the  Almighty  Dollar.  I  do  not  think  the 
dollar  is  almighty  in  America;  I  fancy  many  things  are 
mightier,  including  many  ideals  and  some  rather  insane 
ideals.  But  I  think  it  might  be  maintained  that  the  dollar 
has  another  of  the  attributes  of  deity.  If  it  is  not  om 
nipotent  it  is  in  a  sense  omnipresent.  Whatever  Ameri 
cans  think  about  dollars,  it  is,  I  think,  relatively  true  that 
they  talk  about  dollars.  If  a  mere  mechanical  record 
could  be  taken  by  the  modern  machinery  of  dictaphones 
and  stenography,  I  do  not  think  it  probable  that  the  mere 
word  'dollars'  would  occur  more  often  in  any  given  num 
ber  of  American  conversations  than  the  mere  word 
'pounds'  or  'shillings'  in  a  similar  number  of  English 
conversations.  And  these  statistics,  like  nearly  all  sta 
tistics,  would  be  utterly  useless  and  even  fundamentally 
false.  It  is  as  if  we  should  calculate  that  the  word  'ele 
phant'  had  been  mentioned  a  certain  number  of  times  in 
a  particular  London  street,  or  so  many  times  more  often 
than  the  word  'thunderbolt'  had  been  used  in  Stoke  Poges. 
Doubtless  there  are  statisticians  capable  of  carefully  col 
lecting  those  statistics  also ;  and  doubtless  there  are  scien 
tific  social  reformers  capable  of  legislating  on  the  basis  of 
them.  They  would  probably  argue  from  the  elephan 
tine  imagery  of  the  London  street  that  such  and  such  a 
percentage  of  the  householders  were  megalomaniacs  and 
required  medical  care  and  police  coercion.  And  doubt 
less  their  calculations,  like  nearly  all  such  calculations, 
would  leave  out  the  only  important  point;  as  that  the 
street  was  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  Zoo, 
or  was  yet  more  happily  situated  under  the  benignant 
shadow  of  the  Elephant  and  Castle.  And  in  the  °ame 
way  the  mechanical  calculation  about  the  mention  of 
dollars  is  entirely  useless  unless  we  have  some  moral 


WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

understanding,  of  why  they  are  mentioned.  It  certainly 
does  not  mean  merely  a  love  of  money;  and  if  it  did,  a 
love  of  money  may  mean  a  great  many  very  different  and 
even  contrary  things.  The  love  of  money  is  very  differ 
ent  in  a  peasant  or  in  a  pirate*,  in  a  miser  or  in  a  gambler, 
in  a  great  financier  or.  in  a  man  doing  some  practical  and 
productive  work.  Now  this  difference  in  the  conversation 
of  American  and  English  business  men  arises,  I  think, 
from  certain  much  deeper  things  in  the  American  which 
are  generally  not  understood  by  the  Englishman.  It  also 
arises  from  much  deeper  things  in  the  Englishman,  of 
which  the  Englishman  is  even  more  ignorant. 

To  begin  with,  I  fancy  that  the  American,  quite  apart 
from  any  love  of  money,  has  a  great  love  of  measure 
ment.  He  will  mention  the  exact  size  or  weight  of  things 
in  a  way  which  appears  to  us  as  irrelevant.  It  is  as  if 
we  were  to  say  that  a  man  came  to  see  us  carrying  three 
feet  of  walking  stick  and  four  inches  of  cigar.  It  is 
so  in  cases  that  have  no  possible  connection  with  any 
avarice  or  greed  for  gain.  An  American  will  praise  the 
prodigal  generosity  of  some  other  man  in  giving  up  his 
own  estate  for  the  good  of  the  poor.  But  he  will  gener 
ally  say  that  the  philanthropist  gave  them  a  2OO-acre 
park,  where  an  Englishman  would  think  it  quite  suffi 
cient  to  say  that  he  gave  them  a  park.  There  is  some 
thing  about  this  precision  which  seems  suitable  to  the 
American  atmosphere;  to  the  hard  sunlight,  and  the 
cloudless  skies,  and  the  glittering  detail  of  the  architecture 
and  the  landscape;  just  as  the  vaguer  English  version  is 
consonant  to  our  mistier  and  more  impressionist  scenery. 
It  is  also  connected  perhaps  with  something  more  boyish 
about  the  younger  civilisation;  and  corresponds  to  the 
passionate  particularity  with  which  a  boy  will  distinguish 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       103 

the  uniforms  of  regiments,  the  rigs  of  ships,  or  even  the 
colours  of  tram  tickets.  It  is  a  certain  godlike  appetite 
for  things,  as  distinct  from  thoughts. 

But  there  is  also,  of  course,  a  much  deeper  cause  of  the 
difference ;  and  it  can  easily  be  deduced  by  noting  the  real 
nature  of  the  difference  itself.  When  two  business  men 
in  a  train  are  talking  about  dollars,  I  am  not  so  foolish 
as  to  expect  them  to  be  talking  about  the  philosophy  of 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  But  if  they  were  two  English 
business  men  I  should  not  expect  them  to  be  talking 
about  business.  Probably  it  would  be  about  some  sport ; 
and  most  probably  some  sport  in  which  they  themselves 
never  dreamed  of  indulging.  The  approximate  differ 
ence  is  that  the  American  talks  about  his  work  and  the 
Englishman  about  his  holidays.  His  ideal  is  not  labour 
but  leisure.  Like  every  other  national  characteristic, 
this  is  not  primarily  a  point  for  praise  or  blame;  in 
essence  it  involves  neither  and  in  effect  it  involves  both. 
It  is  certainly  connected  with  that  snobbishness  which  is 
the  great  sin  of  English  society.  The  Englishman  does 
love  to  conceive  himself  as  a  sort  of  country  gentleman; 
and  his  castles  in  the  air  are  all  castles  in  Scotland  rather 
than  in  Spain.  For,  as  an  ideal,  a  Scotch  castle  is  as 
English  as  a  Welsh  rarebit  or  an  Irish  stew.  And  if  he 
talks  less  about  money  I  fear  it  is  mostly  because  in  one 
sense  he  thinks  more  of  it.  Money  is  a  mystery  in  the 
old  and  literal  sense  of  something  too  sacred  for  speech, 
Gold  is  a  god;  and  like  the  god  of  some  agnostics  has  no 
name,  and  is  worshipped  only  in  his  works.  It  is  true  in 
a  sense  that  the  English  gentleman  wishes  to  -have  enough 
money  to  be  able  to  forget  it.  But  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  he  does  entirely  forget  it.  As  against  this 
weakness  the  American  has  succeeded,  at  the  price  of  a 


104  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

great  deal  of  crudity  and  clatter,  in  making  general  a 
very  real  respect  for  work.  He  has  partly  disenchanted 
the  dangerous  glamour  of  the  gentleman,  and  in  that 
sense  has  achieved  some  degree  of  democracy;  which  is 
the  most  difficult  achievement  in  the  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  good  side  to  the  English 
man's  day-dream  of  leisure,  and  one  which  the  American 
spirit  tends  to  miss.  It  may  be  expressed  in  the  word 
'holiday'  or  still  better  in  the  word  'hobby.'  The 
Englishman,  in  his  character  of  Robin  Hood,  really  has, 
got  two  strings  to  his  bow.  Indeed  the  Englishman 
really  is  well  represented  by  Robin  Hood;  for  there  is 
always  something  about  him  that  may  literally  be  called 
outlawed,  in  the  sense  of  being  extra-legal  or  outside  the 
rules.  A  Frenchman  said  of  Browning  that  his  centre 
was  not  in  the  middle;  and  it  may  be  said  of  many  an 
Englishman  that  his  heart  is  not  where  his  treasure  is. 
Browning  expressed  a  very  English  sentiment  when  he 
said : — 

I  like  to  know  a  butcher  paints, 
A  baker  rhymes  for  his  pursuit, 
Candlestick-maker  much  acquaints 
His  soul  with  song,  or  haply  mute 
Blows  out  his  brains  upon  the  flute. 

Stevenson  touched  on  the  same  insular  sentiment  when 
he  said  that  many  men  he  knew,  who  were  meat-salesmen 
to  the  outward  eye,  might  in  the  life  of  contemplation 
sit  with  the  saints.  Now  the  extraordinary  achieve 
ment  of  the  American  meat-salesman  is  that  his  poetic 
enthusiasm  can  really  be  for  meat  sales;  not  for  money 
but  for  -meat.  An  American  commercial  traveller  asked 
me,  with  a  religious  fire  in  his  eye,  whether  I  did  not  think 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       105 

that  salesmanship  could  be  an  art.  In  England  there  are 
many  salesmen  who  are  sincerely  fond  of  art ;  but  seldom 
of  the  art  of  salesmanship.  Art  is  with  them  a  hobby; 
a  thing  of  leisure  and  liberty.  That  is  why  the  English 
traveller  talks,  if  not  of  art,  then  of  sport.  That  is  why 
the  two  city  men  in  the  London  train,  if  they  are  not  talk 
ing  about  golf,  may  be  talking  about  gardening.  If  they 
are  not  talking  about  dollars,  or  the  equivalent  of  dollars, 
the  reason  lies  much  deeper  than  any  superficial  praise  or 
blame  touching  the  desire  for  wealth.  In  the  English 
case,  at  least,  it  lies  very  deep  in  the  English  spirit. 
Many  of  the  greatest  English  things  have  had  this  lighter 
and  looser  character  of  a  hobby  or  a  holiday  experiment. 
Even  a  masterpiece  has  often  been  a  by-product.  The 
works  of  Shakespeare  come  out  so  casually  that  they  can 
be  attributed  to  the  most  improbable  people;  even  to 
Bacon.  The  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  are  picked  up  after 
wards  as  if  out  of  a  wastepaper  basket.  The  immortal 
ity  of  Dr.  Johnson  does  not  rest  on  the  written  leaves  he 
collected,  but  entirely  on  the  words  he  wasted,  the  words 
he  scattered  to  the  winds.  So  great  a  thing  as  Pickwick 
is  almost  a  kind  of  accident;  it  began  as  something  sec 
ondary  and  grew  into  something  primary  and  pre 
eminent.  It  began  with  mere  words  written  to  illustrate 
somebody  else's  pictures ;  and  swelled  like  an  epic  ex 
panded  from  an  epigram.  It  might  almost  be  said  that 
in  the  case  of  Pickwick  the  author  began  as  the  servant 
of  the  artist.  But,  as  in  the  same  story  of  Pickwick,  the 
servant  became  greater  than  the  master.  This  incalcu 
lable  and  accidental  quality,  like  all  national  qualities,  has 
its  strength  and  weakness ;  but  it  does  represent  a  certain 
reserve  fund  of  interests  in  the  Englishman's  life;  and 
distinguishes  him  from  the  other  extreme  type,  of  the 


106  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

millionaire  who  works  till  he  drops,  or  who  drops  be 
cause  he  stops  working.  It  is  the  great  achievement  of 
American  civilisation  that  in  that  country  it  really  is  not 
cant  to  talk  about  the  dignity  of  labour.  There  is  some 
thing  that  might  almost  be  called  the  sanctity  of  labour; 
but  it  is  subject  to  the  profound  law  that  when  anything 
less  than  the  highest  becomes  a  sanctity,  it  tends  also  to 
become  a  superstition.  When  the  candlestick-maker 
does  not  blow  out  his  brains  upon  the  flute,  there  is 
always  a  danger  that  he  may  blow  them  out  somewhere 
else,  owing  to  depressing  conditions  in  the  candlestick 
market* 

Now  certainly  one  of  the  first  impressions  of  America, 
ior  at  any  rate  of  New  York,  which  is  by  no  means  the 
same  thing  as  America,  is  that  of  a  sort  of  mob  of  busi 
ness  men,  behaving  in  many  ways  in  a  fashion  very  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  the  swarms  of  London  city  men  who 
go  up  every  day  to  the  city.  They  sit  about  in  groups 
with  Red-Indian  gravity,  as  if  passing  the  pipe  of  peace; 
though,  in  fact,  most  of  them  are  smoking  cigars  and 
some  of  them  are  eating  cigars.  The  latter  strikes  me  as 
one  of  the  most  peculiar  of  transatlantic  tastes,  more  pe 
culiar  than  that  of  chewing  gum.  A  man  will  sit  for 
hours  consuming  a  cigar  as  if  it  were  a  sugar-stick;  but 
I  should  imagine  it  to  be  a  very  disagreeable  sugar-stick. 
Why  he  attempts  to  enjoy  a  cigar  without  lighting  it  I  do 
not  know;  whether  it  is  a  more  economical  way  of  carry 
ing  a  mere  symbol  of  commercial  conservation;  or 
whether  something  of  the  same  queer  outlandish  morality 
that  draws  such  a  distinction  between  beer  and  ginger 
beer  draws  an  equally  ethical  distinction  between  touch 
ing  tobacco  and  lighting  it.  For  the  rest,  it  would  be 
easy  to  make  a  merely  external  sketch  full  of  things 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       107 

equally  strange ;  for  this  can  always  be  done  in  a  strange 
country.  I  allow  for  the  fact  of  all  foreigners  looking 
alike ;  but  I  fancy  that  all  those  hard-featured  faces,  with 
spectacles  and  shaven  jaws,  do  look  rather  alike,  because 
they  all  like  to  make  their  faces  hard.  And  with  the 
mention  of  their  mental  attitude  we  realise  the  futility  of 
any  such  external  sketch.  Unless  we  can  see  that  these 
are  something  more  than  men  smoking  cigars  and  talking 
about  dollars,  we  had  much  better  not  see  them  at  all. 

It  is  customary  to  condemn  the  American  as  a  mate 
rialist  because  of  his  worship  of  success.  But  indeed 
this  very  worship,  like  any  worship,  even  devil-worship, 
proves  him  rather  a  mystic  than  a  materialist.  The 
Frenchman  who  retires  front  business,  when  he  has 
money  enough  to  drink  his  wine  and  eat  his  omelette  in 
peace,  might  much  more  plausibly  be  called  a  materialist 
by  those  who  do  not  prefer  to  call  him  a  man  of  sense. 
But  Americans  do  worship  success  in  the  abstract,  as  a 
sort  of  ideal  vision.  They  follow  success  rather  than 
money;  they  follow  money  rather  than  meat  and  drink. 
If  their  national  life  in  one  sense  is  a  perpetual  game  of 
poker,  they  are  playing  excitedly  for  chips  or  counters 
as  well  as  for  coins.  And  by  the  ultimate  test  of  mate 
rial  enjoyment,  like  the  enjoyment  of  an  omelette,  even  a 
coin  is  itself  a  counter.  The  Yankee  cannot  eat  chips  as 
the  Frenchman  can  eat  chipped  potatoes ;  but  neither  can 
he  swallow  red  cents  as  the  Frenchman  swallows  red 
wine.  Thus  when  people  say  of  a  Yankee  that  he  wor 
ships  the  dollar,  they  pay  a  compliment  to  his  fine  spirit 
uality  more  true  and  delicate  than  they  imagine.  The 
dollar  is  an  idol  because  it  is  an  image;  but  it  is  an  im 
age  of  success  and  not  of  enjoyment. 

That  this  romance  is  also  a  religion  is  shown  in  the 


io8  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

fact  that  there  is  a  queer  sort  of  morality  attached  to 
it.  The  nearest  parallel  to  it  is  something  like  the  sense 
of  honour  in  tlje  old  duelling  days.  There  is  not  a 
material  but  a  distinctly  moral  savour  about  the  implied 
obligation  to  collect  dollars  or  to  collect  chips.  We  hear 
too  much  in  England  of  the  phrase  about  'making  good' ; 
for  no  sensible  Englishman  favours  the  needless  inter 
larding  of  English  with  scraps  of  foreign  languages. 
But  though  it  means  nothing  in  English,  it  means  some 
thing  very  particular  in  American.  There  is  a  fine  shade 
of  distinction  between  succeeding  and  making  good,  pre 
cisely  because  there  must  always  be  a  sort  of  ethical  echo 
in  the  word  good.  America  does  vaguely  feel  a  man 
making  good  as  something  analogous  to  a  man  being 
good  or  a  man  doing  good.  It  is  connected  with  his 
serious  self-respect  and  his  sense  of  being  worthy  of 
those  he  loves.  Nor  is  this  curious  crude  idealism 
wholly  insincere  even  when  it  drives  him  to  what  some 
of  us  would  call  stealing;  any  more  than  the  duellist's 
honour  was  insincere  when  it  drove  him  to  what  some 
would  call  murder.  A  very  clever  American  play  which 
I  once  saw  acted  contained  a  complete  working  model  of 
this  morality.  A  girl  was  loyal  to,  but  distressed  by,  her 
engagement  to  a  young  man  on  whom  there  was  a  sort  of 
cloud  of  humiliation.  The  atmosphere  was  exactly  what 
it  would  have  been  in  England  if  he  had  been  accused  of 
cowardice  or  card-sharping.  And  there  was  nothing 
whatever  the  matter  with  the  poor  young  man  except  that 
some  rotten  mine  or  other  in  Arizona  had  not  'made 
good/  Now  in  England  we  should  either  be  below  or 
above  that  ideal  of  good.  If  we  were  snobs,  we  should 
be  content  to  know  that  he  was  a  gentleman  of  good 
connections,  perhaps  too  much  accustomed  to  private 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       109 

means  to  be  expected  to  be  business-like.  If  we  were 
somewhat  larger-minded  people,  we  should  know  that  he 
might  be  as  wise  as  Socrates  and  as  splendid  as  Bayard 
and  yet  be  unfitted,  perhaps  one  should  say  therefore  be 
unfitted,  for  the  dismal  and  dirty  gambling  of  modern 
commerce.  But  whether  we  were  snobbish  enough  to 
admire  him  for  being  an  idler,  or  chivalrous  enough  to 
admire  him  for  being  an  outlaw,  in  neither  case  should 
we  ever  really  and  in  our  hearts  despise  him  for  being  a 
failure.  For  it  is  this  inner  verdict  of  instinctive  ideal 
ism  that  is  the  point  at  issue.  Of  course  there  is  nothing 
new,  or  peculiar  to  the  new  world,  about  a  man's  engage 
ment  practically  failing  through  his  financial  failure. 
An  English  girl  might  easily  drop  a  man  because  he  was 
poor,  or  she  might  stick  to  him  faithfully  and  defiantly 
although  he  was  poor.  The  point  is  that  this  girl  was 
faithful  but  she  was  not  defiant;  that  is,  she  was  not 
proud.  The  whole  psychology  of  the  situation  was  that 
she  shared  the  weird  worldly  idealism  of  her  family,  and 
it  was  wounded  as  her  patriotism  would  have  been 
wounded  if  he  had  betrayed  his  country.  To  do  them 
justice,  there  was  nothing  to  show  that  they  would  have 
had  any  real  respect  for  a  royal  duke  who  had  inherited 
millions;  what  the  simple  barbarians  wanted  was  a  man 
who  could  'make  good.'  That  the  process  of  making 
good  would  probably  drag  him  through  the  mire  of 
everything  bad,  that  he  would  make  good  by  bluffing, 
lying,  swindling,  and  grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor,  did 
not  seem  to  trouble  them  in  the  least.  Against  this  fa 
naticism  there  is  this  shadow  of  truth  even  in  the  fiction 
of  aristocracy;  that  a  gentleman  may  at  least  be  allowed 
to  be  good  without  being  bothered  to  make  it. 

Another  objection  to  the  phrase  about  the  almighty 


i  io  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

dollar  is  that  it  is  an  almighty  phrase,  and  therefore  an 
almighty  nuisance.  I  mean  that  it  is  made  to  explain 
everything,  and  to  explain  everything  much  too  well; 
that  is,  much  too  easily.  It  does  not  really  help  people 
to  understand  a  foreign  country;  but  it  gives  them  the 
fatal  illusion  that  they  do  understand  it.  Dollars  stood 
for  America  as  frogs  stood  for  France;  because  it  was 
necessary  to  connect  particular  foreigners  with  some 
thing,  or  it  would  be  so  easy  to  confuse  a  Moor  with  a 
Montenegrin  or  a  Russian  with  a  Red  Indian.  The  only 
cure  for  this  sort  of  satisfied  familiarity  is  the  shock  of 
something  really  unfamiliar.  When  people  can  see 
nothing  at  all  in  American  democracy  except  a  Yankee 
running  after  a  dollar,  then  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  trip 
them  up  as  they  run  after  the  Yankee,  or  run  away  with 
their  notion  of  the  Yankee,  by  the  obstacle  of  certain  odd 
and  obstinate  facts  that  have  no  relation  to  that  notion. 
And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  a  number  of  such 
obstacles  to  any  such  generalisation;  a  number  of  notable 
facts  that  have  to  be  reconciled  somehow  to  our  previous 
notions.  It  does  not  matter  for  this  purpose  whether  the 
facts  are  favourable  or  unfavourable,  or  whether  the 
qualities  are  merits  or  defects;  especially  as  we  do  not 
even  understand  them  sufficiently  to  say  which  they  are. 
The  point  is  that  we  are  brought  to  a  pause,  and  com 
pelled  to  attempt  to  understand  them  rather  better  than 
we  do.  We  have  found  the  one  thing  that  we  did  not 
expect;  and  therefore  the  one  thing  that  we  cannot  ex 
plain.  And  we  are  moved  to  an  effort,  probably  an  un 
successful  effort,  to  explain  it. 

For  instance,  Americans  are  very  unpunctual.  That 
is  the  last  thing  that  a  critic  expects  who  comes  to  con 
demn  them  for  hustling  and  haggling  and  vulgar  avarice. 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       mi 

But  it  is  almost  the  first  fact  that  strikes  the  spectator  on 
the  spot.  The  chief  difference  between  the  humdrum 
English  business  man  and  the  hustling  American  business 
man  is  that  the  hustling  American  business  man  is 
always  late.  Of  course  there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference 
between  coming  late  and  coming  too  late.  But  I  noticed 
the  fashion  first  in  connection  with  my  own  lectures; 
touching  which  I  could  heartily  recommend  the  habit  of 
coming  too  late.  I  could  easily  understand  a  crowd  of 
commercial  Americans  not  coming  to  my  lectures  at  all; 
but  there  was  something  odd  about  their  coming  in  a 
crowd,  and  the  crowd  being  expected  to  turn  up  some 
time  after  the  appointed  hour.  The  managers  of  these 
•lectures  (I  continue  to  call  them  lectures  out  of  courtesy 
to  myself)  often  explained  to  me  that  it  was  quite  use 
less  to  begin  properly  until  about  half  an  hour  after  time. 
Often  people  were  still  coming  in  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  or  even  an  hour  after  time.  Not  that  I  objected  to 
that,  as  some  lectures  are  said  to  do;  it  seemed  to  me 
an  agreeable  break  in  the  monotony ;  but  as  a  characteris 
tic  of  a  people  mostly  engaged  in  practical  business,  it 
struck  me  as  curious  and  interesting.  I  have  grown  ac 
customed  to  being  the  most  unbusinesslike  person  in  any 
given  company,;  and  it  gave  me  a  sort  of  dizzy  exaltation 
to  find  I  was  not  the  most  unpunctual  person  in  that  com 
pany.  I  was  afterwards  told  by  many  Americans  that 
my  impression  was  quite  correct ;  that  American  unpunc- 
tuality  was  really  very  prevalent,  and  extended  to  much 
more  important  things.  But  at  least  I  was  not  content  to 
lump  this  along  with  all  sorts  of  contrary  things  that  I 
did  not  happen  to  like,  and  call  it  America.  I  am  not 
sure  of  what  it  really  means,  but  I  rather  fancy  that 
though  it  may  seem  the  very  reverse  of  the  hustling,  it 


H2  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

has  the  same  origin  as  the  hustling.  The  American  is 
not  punctual  because  he  is  not  punctilious.  He  is  im 
pulsive,  and  has  an  impulse  to  stay  as  well  as  impulse  to 
go.  For,  after  all,  punctuality  belongs  to  the  same  order 
of  ideas  as  punctuation;  and  there  is  no  punctuation 
in  telegrams.  The  order  of  clocks  and  set  hours 
which  English  business  has  always  observed  is  a  good 
thing  in  its  own  way;  indeed  I  think  that  in  a  larger 
sense  it  is  better  than  the  other  way.  But  it  is  better 
because  it  is  a  protection  against  hustling,  not  a  promo 
tion  of  it.  In  other  words,  it  is  better  because  it  is  more 
civilised;  as  a  great  Venetian  merchant  prince  clad  in 
cloth  of  gold  was  more  civilised;  or  an  old  English 
merchant  drinking  port  in  an  oak-panelled  room  was 
more  civilised ;  or  a  little  French  shopkeeper  shutting  up 
his  shop  to  play  dominoes  is  more  civilised.  And  the 
reason  is  that  the  American  has  the  romance  of  business 
and  is  monomaniac,  while  the  Frenchman  has  the  ro 
mance  of  life  and  is  sane.  But  the  romance  of  business 
really  is  a  romance,  and  the  Americans  are  really  roman 
tic  about  it.  And  that  romance,  though  it  revolves 
round  pork  or  petrol,  is  really  like  a  love-affair  in  this; 
that  it  involves  not  only  rushing  but  also  lingering. 

The  American  is  too  busy  to  have  business  habits. 
He  is  also  too  much  in  earnest  to  have  business  rules. 
If  we  wish  to  understand  him,  we  must  compare  him  not 
with  the  French  shopkeeper  when  he  plays  dominoes, 
but  with  the  same  French  shopkeeper  when  he  works  the 
guns  or  mans  the  trenches  as  a  conscript  soldier.  Every 
body  used  to  the  punctilious  Prussian  standard  of  uni 
form  and  parade  has  noticed  the  roughness  and  apparent 
laxity  of  the  French  soldier,  the  looseness  of  his  clothes, 
the  unsightliness  of  his  heavy  knapsack,  in  short  his  infe- 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       113 

riority  in  every  detail  of  the  business  of  war  except  fight 
ing.  There  he  is  much  too  swift  to  be  smart.  He  is 
much  too  practical  to  be  precise.  By  a  strange  illusion 
which  can  lift  pork-packing  almost  to  the  level  of  patri 
otism,  the  American  has  the  same  free  rhythm  in  his 
romance  of  business.  He  varies  his  conduct  not  to  suit 
the  clock  but  to  suit  the  case.  He  gives  more  time  to 
more  important  and  less  time  to  less  important  things; 
and  he  makes  up  his  time-table  as  he  goes  along.  Sup 
pose  he  has  three  appointments;  the  first,  let  us  say,  is 
some  mere  trifle  of  erecting  a  tower  twenty  storeys  high 
and  exhibiting  a  sky-sign  on  the  top  of  it;  the  second  is  a 
business  discussion  about  the  possibility  of  printing  ad 
vertisements  of  soft  drinks  on  the  table-napkins  at  a 
restaurant;  the  third  is  attending  a  conference  to  decide 
how  the  populace  can  be  prevented  from  using  chewing- 
gum  and  the  manufacturers  can  still  manage  to  sell  it. 
He  will  be  content  merely  to  glance  at  the  sky-sign  as  he 
goes  by  in  a  trolley-car  or  an  automobile;  he  will  then 
settle  down  to  the  discussion  with  his  partner  about  the 
table-napkins,  each  speaker  indulging  in  long  monologues 
in  turn;  a  peculiarity  of  much  American  conversation. 
Now  if  in  the  middle  of  one  of  these  monologues,  he  sud 
denly  thinks  that  the  vacant  space  of  the  waiter's  shirt- 
front  might  also  be  utilised  to  advertise  the  Gee  Whiz 
Ginger  Champagne,  he  will  instantly  follow  up  the  new 
idea  in  all  its  aspects  and  possibilities,  in  an  even  longer 
monologue ;  and  will  never  think  of  looking  at  his  watch 
while  he  is  rapturously  looking  at  his  waiter.  The  con 
sequence  is  that  he  will  come  late  into  the  great  social 
movement  against  chew,ing-gum,  where  an  Englishman 
would  probably  have  arrived  at  the  proper  hour.  But 
though  the  Englishman's  conduct  is  more  proper,  it  need 


ii4  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

not  be  in  all  respects  more  practical.  The  Englishman's 
rules  are  better  for  the  business  of  life,  but  not  necessarily 
for  the  life  of  business.  And  it  is  true  that  for  many  of 
these  Americans  business  is  the  business  of  life.  It  is 
really  also,  as  I  have  said,  the  romance  of  life.  We  shall 
admire  or  deplore  this  spirit,  in  proportion  as  we  are  glad 
to  see  trade  irradiated  with  so  much  poetry,  or  sorry  to 
see  so  much  poetry  wasted  on  trade.  But  it  does  make 
many  people  happy,  like  any  other  hobby;  and  one  is  dis 
posed  to  add  that  it  does  fill  their  imaginations  like  any 
other  delusion.  For  the  true  criticism  of  all  this  com 
mercial  romance  would  involve  a  criticism  of  this  historic 
phase  of  commerce.  These  people  are  building  on  the 
sand,  though  it  shines  like  gold,  and  for  them  like  fairy 
gold ;  but  the  world  will  remember  the  legend  about  fairy 
gold.  Half  the  financial  operations  they  follow  deal  with 
things  that  do  not  even  exist ;  for  in  that  sense  all  finance 
is  a  fairy-tale.  Many  of  them  are  buying  and  selling 
things  that  do  nothing  but  harm;  but  it  does  them  good 
to  buy  and  sell  them.  The  claim  of  the  romantic  sales 
man  is  better  justified  than  he  realises.  .Business  really 
is  romance ;  for  it  is  not  reality. 

There  is  one  real  advantage  that  America  has  over 
England,  largely  due  to  its  livelier  and  more  impression 
able  ideal.  America  does  not  think  that  stupidity  is  prac 
tical.  It  does  not  think  that  ideas  are  merely  destructive 
things.  It  does  not  think  that  a  genius  is  only  a  person 
to  be  told  to  go  away  and  blow  his  brains  out ;  rather  it 
would  open  all  its  machinery  to  the  genius  and  beg  him  to 
blow  his  brains  in.  It  might  attempt  to  use  a  natural 
force  like  Blake  or  Shelley  for  very  ignoble  purposes ;  it 
would  be  quite  capable  of  asking  Blake  to  take  his  tiger 
and  his  golden  lions  round  as  a  sort  of  Barnum's  show,  or 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       115 

Shelley  to  hang  his  stars  and  haloed  clouds  among  the 
lights  of  Broadway.  But  it  would  not  assume  that  a 
natural  force  is  useless,  any  more  than  that  Niagara  is 
useless.  And  there  is  a  very  definite  distinction  here 
touching  the  intelligence  of  the  trader,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  either  course  touching  the  intelligence  of  the  art 
ist.  It  is  one  thing  that  Apollo  should  be  employed  by 
Admetus,  although  he  is  a  god.  It  is  quite  another  thing 
that  Apollo  should  always  be  sacked  by  Admetus,  because 
he  is  a  god.  Now  in  England,  largely  owing  to  the  acci 
dent  of  a  rivalry  and  therefore  a  comparison  with  France, 
there  arose  about  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  an 
extraordinary  notion  that  there  was  some  sort  of  connec 
tion  between  dullness  and  success.  What  the  Americans 
call  a  bonehead  became  what  the  English  call  a  hard- 
headed  man.  The  merchants  of  London  evinced  their 
contempt  for  the  fantastic  logicians  of  Paris  by  living  in 
a  permanent  state  of  terror  lest  somebody  should  set  the 
Thames  on  fire.  In  this  as  in  much  else  it  is  much  easier 
to  understand  the  Americans,  if  we  connect  them  with 
the  French  who  were  their  allies  than  with  the  English 
who  were  their  enemies.  There  are  a  great  many 
Franco- American  resemblances  which  the  practical  Anglo- 
Saxons  are  of  course  too  hard-headed  (or  boneheaded) 
to  see.  American  history  is  haunted  with  the  shadow  of 
the  Plebiscitary  President ;  they  have  a  tradition  of  classi 
cal  architecture  for  public  buildings,  Their  cities  are 
planned  upon  the  squares  of  Paris  and  not  upon  the 
labyrinth  of  London.  They  call  their  cities  Corinth  and 
Syracuse,  as  the  French  called  their  citizens  Epaminon- 
das  and  Timoleon.  Their  soldiers  wore  the  French  kepi,; 
and  they  make  coffee  admirably,  and  do  not  make  tea  at 
all.  But  of  all  the  French  elements  in  America  the  most 


n6  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

French  is  this  real  practicality.  They  know  that  at  cer 
tain  times  the  most  businesslike  of  all  qualities  is 
Taudace,  et  encore  de  Faudace,  et  toujours  de  1'audace.' 
The  publisher  may  induce  the  poet  to  do  a  pot-boiler; 
but  the  publisher  would  cheerfully  allow  the  poet  to  set 
the  Mississippi  on  fire,  if  it  would  boil  his  particular  pot. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  Englishmen  are  stupid  as  that  they 
are  afraid  of  being  clever;  and  it  is  not  so  much  that 
Americans  are  clever  as  that  they  do  not  try  to  be  any 
stupider  than  they  are.  The  fire  of  French  logic  has 
burnt  that  out  of  America  as  it  has  burnt  it  out  of 
^Europe,  and  of  almost  every  place  except  England. 
This  is  one  of  the  few  points  on  which  England  insularity 
really  is  a  disadvantage.  It  is  the  fatal  notion  that  the 
only  sort  of  commonsense  is  to  be  found  in  compromise, 
and  that  the  only  sort  of  compromise  is  to  be  found  in 
confusion.  This  must  be  clearly  distinguished  from  the 
commonplace  about  the  utilitarian  world  not  rising  to  the 
invisible  values  of  genius.  Under  this  philosophy  the 
utilitarian  does  not  see  the  utility  of  genius,  even  when 
it  is  quite  visible.  He  does  not  see  it,  not  because  he  is  a 
utilitarian,  but  because  he  is  an  idealist  whose  ideal  is 
dullness.  For  some  time  the  English  aspired  to  be 
stupid,  prayed  and  hoped  with  soaring  spiritual  ambition 
to  be  stupid.  But  with  all  their  worship  of  success,  they 
did  not  succeed  in  being  stupid.  The  natural  talents  of 
a  great  and  traditional  nation  were  always  breaking  out 
in  spite  of  them.  In  spite  of  the  merchants  of  London, 
Turner  did  set  the  Thames  on  fire.  In  spite  of  our  re 
peatedly  explained  preference  for  realism  to  romance, 
Europe  persisted  in  resounding  with  the  name  of  Byron. 
And  just  when  we  had  made  it  perfectly  clear  to  the 
French  that  we  despised  all  their  flamboyant  tricks,  that 


THE  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MAN       117 

we  were  a  plain  prosaic  people  and  there  was  no  fantastic 
glory  or  chivalry  about  us,  the  very  shaft  we  sent  against 
them  shone  with  the  name  of  Nelson,  a  shooting  and  a 
falling  star. 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS 

LL  good  Americans  wish  to  fight  the  represen 
tatives  they  have  chosen.  All  good  Englishmen 
wish  to  forget  the  representatives  they  have 
chosen.  This  difference,  deep  and  perhaps  ineradicable  in 
the  temperaments  of  the  two  peoples,  explains  a  thousand 
things  in  their  literature  and  their  laws.  The  American 
national  poet  praised  his  people  for  their  readiness  'to 
rise  against  the  never-ending  audacity  of  elected  persons.' 
The  English  national  anthem  is  content  to  say  heartily, 
but  almost  hastily,  'Confound  their  politics,'  and  then 
more  cheerfully,  as  if  changing  the  subject,  'God  save 
the  King.'  For  this  is  especially  the  secret  of  the  mon 
arch  or  chief  magistrate  in  the  two  countries.  They 
arm  the  President  with  the  powers  of  a  King, -that  he 
may  be  a  nuisance  in  politics.  We  deprive  the  King  even 
of  the  powers  of  a  President,  lest  he  should  remind  us 
of  a  politician.  We  desire  to  forget  the  never-ending 
audacity  of  elected  persons;  and  with  us  therefore  it 
really  never  does  end.  That  is  the  practical  objection 
to  our  own  habit  of  changing  the  subject,  instead  of 
changing  the  ministry.  The  King,  as  the  Irish  wit 
observed,  is  not  a  subject;  but  in  that  sense  the  English 
crowned  head  is  not  a  King.  He  is  a  popular  figure  in 
tended  to  remind  us  of  the  England  that  politicians  do 
not  remember ;  the  England  of  horses  and  ships  and  gar 
dens  and  good  fellowship.  The  Americans  have  no  such 
purely  social  Symbol;  and  it  is  rather  the  root  than  the 

118 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS         119 

result  of  this  that  their  social  luxury,  and  especially 
their  sport,  are  a  little  lacking  in  humanity  and  hu 
mour.  It  is  the  American,  much  more  than  the  Eng 
lishman,  who  takes  his  pleasures  sadly,  not  to  say  sav 
agely. 

The  genuine  popularity  of  constitutional  monarchs,  in 
parliamentary  countries,  can  be  explained  by  any  practi 
cal  example.  Let  us  suppose  that  great  social  reform, 
The  Compulsory  Haircutting  Act,  has  just  begun  to  be 
enforced.  The  Compulsory  Haircutting  Act,  as  every 
good  citizen  knows,  is  a  statute  which  permits  any  person 
to  grow  his  hair  to  any  length,  in  any  wild  or  wonderful 
shape,  so  long  as  he  is  registered  with  a  hairdresser  who 
charges  a  shilling.  But  it  imposes  a  universal  close- 
shave  (like  that  which  is  found  so  hygienic  during  a  cura 
tive  detention  at  Dartmoor)  on  all  who  are  registered 
only  with  a  barber  who  charges  threepence.  Thus,  while 
the  ornamental  classes  can  continue  to  ornament  the 
street  with  Piccadilly  weepers  or  chin-beards  if  they 
choose,  the  working  classes  demonstrate  the  care  with 
which  the  State  protects  them  by  going  about  in  a 
fresher,  cooler  and  cleaner  condition;  a  condition  which 
has  the  further  advantage  of  revealing  at  a  glance  that 
outline  of  the  criminal  skull,  which  is  so  common  among 
them.  The  Compulsory  Haircutting  Act  is  thus  in  every 
way  a  compact  and  convenient  example  of  all  our  current 
laws  about  education,  sport,  liquor,  and  liberty  in  general. 
Well,  the  law  has  passed,  and  the  masses,  insensible  to  its 
scientific  value,  are  still  murmuring  against  it.  The  ig 
norant  peasant  maiden  is  averse  to  so  extreme  a  fashion 
of  bobbing  her  hair;  and  does  not  see  how  she  can  even  be 
a  flapper  with  nothing  to  flap.  Her  father,  his  mind 
already  poisoned  by  Bolshevists,  begins  to  wonder  who 


120  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  devil  does  these  things,  and  why.  In  proportion  as 
he  knows  the  world  of  to-day,  he  guesses  that  the  real 
origin  may  be  quite  obscure,  or  the  real  motive  quite  cor 
rupt.  The  pressure  may  have  come  from  anybody  who 
has  gained  power  or  money  anyhow.  It  may  come  from 
the  foreign  millionaire  who  owns  all  the  expensive  hair- 
dressing  saloons ;  it  may  come  from  some  swindler  in  the 
cutlery  trade  who  has  contracted  to  sell  a  million  bad 
razors.  Hence  the  poor  man  looks  about  him  with  sus 
picion  in  the  street;  knowing  that  the  lowest  sneak  or 
the  loudest  snob  he  sees  may  be  directing  the  government 
of  his  country.  Anybody  may  have  to  do  with  politics ; 
and  this  sort  of  thing  is  politics.  Suddenly  he  catches 
sight  of  a  crowd,  stops,  and  begins  wildly  to  cheer  a 
carriage  that  is  passing.  The  carriage  contains  the  one 
person  who  has  certainly  not  originated  any  great  scien 
tific  reform.  He  is  the  only  person  in  the  common 
wealth  who  is  not  allowed  to  cut  off  other  people's  hair, 
or  to  take  away  other  people's  liberties.  He  at  least  is 
kept  out  of  politics ;  and  men  hold  him  up  as  they  did  an 
unspotted  victim  to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  gods.  He 
is  their  King,  and  the  only  man  they  know  is  not  their 
ruler.  We  need  not  be  surprised  that  he  is  popular, 
knowing  how  they  are  ruled. 

The  popularity  of  a  President  in  America  is  exactly 
the  opposite.  The  American  Republic  is  the  last  medi 
aeval  monarchy.  It  is  intended  that  the  President 
shall  rule,  and  take  all  the  risks  of  ruling.  If  the  hair  is? 
cut  he  is  the  haircutter,  the  magistrate  that  bears  not  the 
razor  in  vain.  All  the  popular  Presidents,  Jackson  and 
Lincoln  and  Roosevelt,  have  acted  as  democratic  despots, 
but  emphatically  not  as  constitutional  monarchs.  In 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          121 

short,  the  names  have  become  curiously  interchanged; 
and  as  a  historical  reality  it  is  the  President  who  ought 
to  be  called  a  King. 

But  it  is  not  only  true  that  the  President  could  cor 
rectly  be  called  a  King.  It  is  also  true  that  the  King 
might  correctly  be  called  a  President.  We  could  hardly 
find  a  more  exact  description  of  him  than  to  call  him  a 
President.  What  is  expected  in  modern  times  of  a  mod 
ern  constitutional  monarch  is  emphatically  that  he  should 
preside.  We  expect  him  to  take  the  throne  exactly  as 
if  he  were  taking  the  chair.  The  chairman  does  not 
move  the  motion  or  resolution,  far  less  vote  it ;  he  is  not 
supposed  even  to  favour  it.  He  is  expected  to  please 
everybody  by  favouring  nobody.  The  primary  essentials 
of  a  President  or  Chairman  are  that  he  should  be  treated 
with  ceremonial  respect,  that  he  should  be  popular  in 
his  personality  and  yet  impersonal  in  his  opinions,  and 
that  he  should  actually  be  a  link  between  all  the  other 
persons  by  being  different  from  all  of  them.  This  is 
exactly  what  is  demanded  of  the  constitutional  monarch 
in  modern  times.  It  is  exactly  the  opposite  to  the 
American  position;  in  which  the  President  does  not 
preside  at  all.  He  moves ;  and  the  thing  he  moves  may 
truly  be  called  a  motion;  for  the  national  idea  is  perpet 
ual  motion.  Technically  it  is  called  a  message;  and 
might  often  actually  be  called  a  menace.  Thus  we  may 
truly  say  that  the  King  presides  and  the  President  reigns. 
Some  would  prefer  to  say  that  the  President  rules;  and 
some  Senators  and  members  of  Congress  would  prefer  to 
say  that  he  rebels.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  moves ; 
he  does  not  take  the  chair  or  even  the  stool,  but  rather 
the  stump.  i 


122  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Some  people  seem  to  suppose  that  the  fall  of  President 
Wilson  was  a  denial  of  this  almost  despotic  ideal  in 
America,  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  the  strongest 
possible  assertion  of  it  The  idea  is  that  the  President 
shall  take  responsibility  and  risk;  and  responsibility 
means  being  blamed,  and  risk  means  the  risk  of  being 
blamed*  The  theory  is  that  things  are  done  by  the 
President;  and  if  things  go  wrong,  or  are  alleged  to  go 
wrong,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  President.  This  does  not 
invalidate,  but  rather  ratifies  the  comparison  with  true 
monarchs  such  as  the  mediaeval  monarchs.  Constitu 
tional  princes  are  seldom  deposed ;  but  despots  were  often 
deposed.  In  the  simpler  races  of  sunnier  lands,  such  as 
Turkey,  they  were  commonly  assassinated.  Even  in  our 
own  history  a  King  often  received  the  same  respectful 
tribute  to  the  responsibility  and  reality  of  his  office.  But 
King  John  was  attacked  because  he  was  strong,  not 
because  he  wa£  weak.  Richard  the  Second  lost  the 
crown  because  the  crown  was  a  trophy,  not  because  it 
was  a  trifle.  And  President  Wilson  was  deposed  be 
cause  he  had  used  a  power  which  is  such,  in  its  nature, 
that  a  man  must  use  it  at  the  risk  of  deposition.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  of  course,  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate  Mr. 
Wilson's  real  unpopularity,  and  still  more  easy  to  exag 
gerate  Mr.  Wilson's  real  failure.  There  are  a  great 
many  people  in  America  who  justify  and  applaud  him; 
and  what  is  yet  more  interesting,  who  justify  him  not  on 
pacifist  and  idealistic,  but  on  patriotic  and  even  military 
grounds^  It  is  especially  insisted  by  some  that  his  dem 
onstration,  which  seemed  futile  as  a  threat  against 
Mexico,  was  a  very  far-sighted  preparation  for  the  threat 
against  Prussia.  But  in  so  far  as  the  democracy  did 
disagree  with  him,  it  was  but  the  occasional  and  inevi- 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          123 

table  result  of  the  theory  by  which  the  despot  has  to 
anticipate  the  democracy. 

Thus  the  American  King  and  the  English  President 
are  the  very  opposite  of  each  other;  yet  they  are  both  the 
varied  and  very  national  indications  of  the  same  con 
temporary  truth.  It  is  the  great  weariness  and  contempt 
that  have  fallen  upon  common  politics  in  both  countries. 
It  may  be  answered,  with  some  show  of  truth,  that  the 
new  American  President  represents  a  return  to  common 
politics ;  and  that  in  that  sense  he  marks  a  real  rebuke  to 
the  last  President  and  his  more  uncommon  politics.  And 
it  is  true  that  many  who  put  Mr.  Harding  in  power 
regard  him  as  the  symbol  of  something  which  they  call 
normalcy;  which  may  roughly  be  translated  into  English 
by  the  word  normality.  And  by  this  they  do  mean,  more 
or  less,  the  return  to  the  vague  capitalist  conservatism 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  They  might  call  Mr.  Harding 
a  Victorian  if  they  had  ever  lived  under  Victoria.  Per 
haps  these  people  do  entertain  the  extraordinary  notion 
that  the  nineteenth  century  was  normal.  But  there  are 
very  few  who  think  so,  and  even  they  will  not  think  so 
long.  The  blunder  is  the  beginning  of  nearly  all  our 
present  troubles.  The  nineteenth  century  was  the  very 
reverse  of  normal.  It  suffered  a  most  unnatural  strain 
in  the  combination  of  political  equality  in  theory  with 
extreme  economic  inequality  in  practice.  Capitalism 
was  not  a  normalcy  but  an  abnormalcy.  Property  is 
normal,  and  is  more  normal  in  proportion  as  it  is  univer 
sal.  Slavery  may  be  normal  and  even  natural,  in  the 
sense  that  a  bad  habit  may  be  a  second  nature.  But  Cap 
italism  was  never  anything  so  human  as  a  habit ;  we  may 
say  it  was  never  anything  so  good  as  a  bad  habit.  It  was 
never  a  custom;  for  men  never  grew  accustomed  to  it. 


124  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

It  was  never  even  conservative;  for  before  it  was  even 
created  wise  men  had  realised  that  it  could  not  be  con 
served.  It  was  from  the  first  a  problem;  and  those  who 
will  not  even  admit  the  Capitalist  problem  deserve  to  get 
the  Bolshevist  solution.  All  things  considered,  I  cannot 
say  anything  worse  of  them  than  that. 

The  recent  Presidential  election  preserved  some  trace 
of  the  old  Party  System  of  America;  but  its  tradition 
has  very  nearly  faded  like  that  of  the  Party  System  of 
England.  It  is  easy  for  an  Englishman  to  confess  that 
he  never  quite  understood  the  American  Party  System. 
It  would  perhaps  be  more  courageous  in  him,  and  more 
informing,  to  confess  that  he  never  really  understood  the 
British  Party  System.  The  planks  in  the  two  American 
platforms  may  easily  be  exhibited  as  very  disconnected 
and  ramshackle;  but  our  own  party  was  as  much  of  a 
patchwork,  and  indeed  I  think  even  more  so.  Every 
body  knows  that  the  two  American  factions  were  called 
'Democrat'  and  'Republican/  It  does  not  at  all  cover 
the  case  to  identify  the  former  with  Liberals  and  the 
latter  with  Conservatives.  The  Democrats  are  the  party 
of  the  South  and  have  some  true  tradition  from  the 
Southern  aristocracy  and  the  defence  of  Secession  and 
State  Rights.  The  Republicans  rose  in  the  North  as  the 
party  of  Lincoln,  largely  condemning  slavery.  But  the 
Republicans  are  also  the  party  of  Tariffs,  and  are  at  least 
accused  of  being  the  party  of  Trusts.  The  Democrats 
are  the  party  of  Free  Trade ;  and  in  the  great  movement 
of  twenty  years  ago  the  party  of  Free  Silver.  The 
Democrats  are  also  the  party  of  the  Irish;  and  the  stones 
they  throw  at  Trusts  are  retorted  by  stones  thrown  at 
Tammany.  It  is  easy  to  see  all  these  things  as  curiously 
sporadic  and  bewildering ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS         125 

they  are  as  a  whole  more  coherent  and  rational  than  our 
own  old  division  of  Liberals  and  Conservatives.  There 
is  even  more  doubt  nowadays  about  what  is  the  connecting 
link  betwen  the  different  items  in  the  old  British  party 
programmes.  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  why 
being  in  favour  of  Protection  should  have  anything  to  do 
with  being  opposed  to  Home  Rule ;  especially  as  most  of 
the  people  who  were  to  receive  Home  Rule  were  them 
selves  in  favour  of  Protection.  I  could  never  see  what 
giving  people  cheap  bread  had  to  do  with  forbidding  them 
cheap  beer;  or  why  the  party  which  sympathises  with 
Ireland  cannot  sympathise  with  Poland.  I  cannot  see 
why  Liberals  did  not  liberate  public-houses  or  Conserva 
tives  conserve  crofters.  I  do  not  understand  the  principle 
upon  which  the  causes  were  selected  on  both  sides;  and 
I  incline  to  think  that  it  was  with  the  impartial  object  of 
distributing  nonsense  equally  on  both  sides.  Heaven 
knows  there  is  enough  nonsense  in  American  politics  too ; 
towering  and  tropical  nonsense  like  a  cyclone  or  an  earth 
quake.  But  when  all  is  said,  I  incline  to  think  that  there 
was  more  spiritual  and  atmospheric  cohesion  in  the  dif 
ferent  parts  of  the  American  party  than  in  those  of  the 
English  party ;  and  I  think  this  unity  was  all  the  more  real 
because  it  was  more  difficult  to  define.  The  Republican 
party  originally  stood  for  the  triumph  of  the  North,  and 
the  North  stood  for  the  nineteenth  century ;  that  is  for  the 
characteristic  commercial  expansion  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury;  for  a  firm  faith  in  the  profit  and  progress  of  its 
great  and  growing  cities,  its  division  of  labour,  its  indus 
trial  science,  and  its  evolutionary  reform.  The  Demo 
cratic  party  stood  more  loosely  for  all  the  elements  that 
doubted  whether  this  development  was  democratic  or  was 
desirable;  all  that  looked  back  to  Jeffersonian  idealism 


126  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

and  the  serene  abstractions  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
or  forward  to  Bryanite  idealism  and  some  simplified 
Utopia  founded  on  grain  rather  than  gold.  Along  with 
this  went,  not  at  all  unnaturally,  the  last  and  lingering 
sentiment  of  the  Southern  squires,  who  remembered  a 
more  rural  civilisation  that  seemed  by  comparison  roman 
tic.  Along  with  this  went,  quite  logically,  the  passions 
and  the  pathos  of  the  Irish,  themselves  a  rural  civilisation, 
whose  basis  is  a  religion  or  what  the  nineteenth  century 
tended  to  call  a  superstition.  Above  all,  it  was  perfectly 
natural  that  this  tone  of  thought  should  favour  local 
liberties,  and  even  a  revolt  on  behalf  of  local  liberties,  and 
should  distrust  the  huge  machine  of  centralised  power 
called  the  Union.  In  short,  something  very  near  the 
truth  was  said  by  a  suicidally  silly  Republican  orator,  who 
was  running  Elaine  for  the  Presidency,  when  he  de 
nounced  the  Democratic  party  as  supported  by  'Rome, 
rum,  and  rebellion.'  They  seem  to  me  to  be  three  excel 
lent  things  in  their  place;  and  that  is  why  I  suspect  that 
I  should  have  belonged  to  the  Democratic  party,  if  I  had 
been  born  in  America  when  there  was  a  Democratic  party. 
But  I  fancy  that  by  this  time  even  this  general  distinction 
has  become  very  dim.  If  I  had  been  an  American  twenty 
years  ago,  in  the  time  of  the  great  Free  Silver  campaign, 
I  should  certainly  never  have  hesitated  for  an  instant 
about  my  sympathies  or  my  side.  My  feelings  would 
have  been  exactly  those  that  are  nobly  expressed  by  Mr. 
Vachell  Lindsay,  in  a  poem  bearing  the  characteristic  title 
of  'Bryan,  Bryan,  Bryan,  Bryan/  And,  by  the  way, 
nobody  can  begin  to  sympathise  with  America  whose  soul 
does  not  to  some  extent  begin  to  swing  and  dance  to  the 
drums  and  gongs  of  Mr.  Vachell  Lindsay's  great  orches 
tra;  which  has  the  note  of  his  whole  nation  in  this:  that 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          127 

a  refined  person  can  revile  it  a  hundred  times  over  as  vul 
gar  and  brazen  and  barbarous  and  absurd,  but  not  as 
insincere ;  there  is  something  in  it,  and  that  something  is 
the  soul  of  many  million  men.  But  the  poet  himself,  in 
the  political  poem  referred  to,  speaks  of  Bryan's  fall  over 
iFree  Silver  as  'defeat  of  my  boyhood,  defeat  of  my 
dream' ;  and  it  is  only  too  probable  that  the  cause  has 
fallen  as  well  as  the  candidate.  The  William  Jennings 
Bryan  of  later  years  is  not  the  man  whom  I  should  have 
seen  in  my  youth,  with  the  visionary  eyes  of  Mr.  Vachell 
Lindsay.  He  has  become  a  commonplace  Pacifist,  which 
is  in  its  nature  the  very  opposite  of  a  revolutionist;  for 
if  men  will  fight  rather  than  sacrifice  humanity  on  a  golden 
cross,  it  cannot  be  wrong  for  them  to  resist  its  being 
sacrificed  to  an  iron  cross.  I  came  into  very  indirect  con 
tact  with  Mr.  Bryan  when  I  was  in  America,  in  a  fashion 
that  made  me  realise  how  it  has  become  to  recover  the 
illusions  of  a  Bryanite.  I  believe  that  my  lecture  agent 
was  anxious  to  arrange  a  debate,  and  I  threw  out  a  sort 
of  loose  challenge  to  the  effect  that  woman's  suffrage  had 
weakened  the  position  of  woman;  and  while  I  was  away 
in  the  wilds  of  Oklahoma  my  lecture  agent  (a  man  of 
blood-curdling  courage  and  enterprise)  asked  Mr.  Bryan 
to  debate  with  me.  Now  Mr.  Bryan  is  one  of  the  great 
est  orators  of  modern  history,  and  there  is  no  conceivable 
reason  why  he  should  trouble  to  debate  with  a  wandering 
lecturer.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  expressed  himself 
in  the  most  magnanimous  and  courteous  terms  about  my 
personal  position,  but  said  (as  I  understood)  that  it 
would  be  improper  to  debate  on  female  suffrage  as  it  was 
already  a  part  of  the  political  system.  And  when  I  heard 
that,  I  could  not  help  a  sigh;  for  I  recognised  something 
that  I  knew  only  too  well  on  the  front  benches  of  my  own 


128  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

beloved  land.  The  great  and  glorious  demagogue  had  de 
generated  into  a  statesman.  I  had  never  expected  for 
a  moment  that  the  great  orator  could  be  bothered  to  debate 
with  me  at  all ;  but  it  had  never  occurred  to  me,  as  a  gen 
eral  principle,  that  two  educated  men  were  for  ever  for 
bidden  to  talk  sense  about  a  particular  topic,  because  a  lot 
of  other  people  had  already  voted  on  it.  What  is  the 
matter  with  that  attitude  is  the  loss  of  the  freedom  of  the 
mind.  There  can  be  no  liberty  of  thought  unless  it  is 
ready  to  unsettle  what  has  recently  been  settled,  as  well 
as  what  has  long  been  settled.  We  are  perpetually  being 
told  in  the  papers  that  what  is  wanted  is  a  strong  man  who 
will  do  things.  What  is  wanted  is  a  strong  man  who 
will  undo  things;  and  that  will  be  a  real  test  of  strength. 
Anyhow,  we  could  have  believed,  in  the  time  of  the 
Free  Silver  fight,  that  the  Democratic  party  was  demo 
cratic  with  a  small  d.  In  Mr.  Wilson  it  was  transfigured, 
his  friends  would  say  into  a  higher  and  his  foes  into  a 
hazier  thing.  And  the  Republican  reaction  against  him, 
even  where  it  has  been  healthy,  has  also  been  hazy.  In 
fact,  it  has  been  not  so  much  the  victory  of  a  political 
party  as  a  relapse  into  repose  after  certain  political  pas 
sions;  and  in  that  sense  there  is  a  truth  in  the  strange 
phrase  about  normalcy ;  in  the  sense  that  there  is  nothing 
more  normal  than  going  to  sleep.  But  an  even  larger 
truth  is  this ;  it  is  most  likely  that  America  is  no  longer 
concentrated  on  these  faction  fights  at  all,  but  is  consider 
ing  certain  large  problems  upon  which  those  factions 
hardly  troubled  to  take  sides.  They  are  too  large  even  to 
be  classified  as  foreign  policy  distinct  from  domestic 
policy.  They  are  so  large  as  to  be  inside  as  well  as  out 
side  the  state.  From  an  English  standpoint  the  most 
obvious  example  is  the  Irish ;  for  the  Irish  problem  is  not 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          129 

a  British  problem,  but  also  an  American  problem.  And 
this  is  true  even  of  the  great  external  enigma  of  Japan. 
The  Japanese  question  may  be  a  part  of  foreign  policy 
for  America,  but  it  is  a  part  of  domestic  policy  for  Cali 
fornia.  And  the  same  is  true  of  that  other  intense  and 
intelligent  Eastern  people,  the  genius  and  limitations  of 
which  have  troubled  the  world  so  much  longer.  What 
the  Japs  are  in  California,  the  Jews  are  in  America. 
That  is,  they  are  a  piece  of  foreign  policy  that  has  be 
come  imbedded  in  domestic  policy;  something  which  is 
found  inside  but  still  has  to  be  regarded  from  the  outside. 
On  these  great  international  matters  I  doubt  if  Americans 
got  much  guidance  from  their  party  system;  especially  as 
most  of  these  questions  have  grown  very  recently  and 
rapidly  to  enormous  size.  Men  are  left  free  to  judge  of 
them  with  fresh  minds.  And  that  is  the  truth  in  the 
statement  that  the  Washington  Conference  has  opened 
the  gates  of  a  new  world. 

On  the  relations  to  England  and  Ireland  I  will  not 
attempt  to  dwell  adequately  here.  I  have  already  noted 
that  my  first  interview  was  with  an  Irishman,  and  my 
first  impression  from  that  interview  a  vivid  sense  of  the 
importance  of  Ireland  in  Anglo-American  relations;  and 
I  have  said  something  of  the  Irish  problem,  prematurely 
and  out  of  its  proper  order,  under  the  stress  of  that  sense 
of  urgency.  Here  I  will  only  add  two  remarks  about  the 
two  countries  respectively.  A  great  many  British 
journalists  have  recently  imagined  that  they  were  pour 
ing  oil  upon  the  troubled  waters,  when  they  were  rather 
pouring  out  oil  to  smooth  the  downward  path ;  and  to  turn 
the  broad  road  to  destruction  into  a  butter-slide.  They 
seem  to  have  no  notion  of  what  to  do,  except  to  say  what 
they  imagine  the  very  stupidest  of  their  readers  would 


130  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

be  pleased  to  hear,  and  conceal  whatever  the  most  intelli 
gent  of  their  readers  would  probably  like  to  know.  They 
therefore  informed  the  public  that  'the  majority  of 
Americans'  had  abandoned  all  sympathy  with  Ireland, 
because  of  its  alleged  sympathy  with  Germany;  and  that 
this  majority  of  Americans  was  now  adherently  in  sym 
pathy  with  its  English  brothers  across  the  sea.  Now  to 
begin  with,  such  critics  have  no  notion  of  what  they  are 
saying  when  they  talk  about  the  majority  of  Americans. 
To  anybody  who  has  happened  to  look  in,  let  us  say,  on 
the  city  of  Omaha,  Nebraska,  the  remark  will  have  some 
thing  enormous  and  overwhelming  about  it.  It  is  like 
saying  that  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  China 
would  agree  with  the  Chinese  Ambassador  in  a  pref 
erence  for  dining  at  the  Savoy  rather  than  the  Ritz. 
There  are  millions  and  millions  of  people  living  in  those 
great  central  plains  of  the  North  American  Continent  of 
whom  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  they  have 
never  heard  of  England,  or  of  Ireland  either,  than  to  say 
that  their  first  emotional  movement  is  a  desire  to  come 
to  the  rescue  of  either  of  them.  It  is  perfectly  true  that 
the  more  monomaniac  sort  of  Sinn  Feiner  might  some 
times  irritate  this  innocent  and  isolated  American  spirit 
by  being  pro-Irish.  It  is  equally  true  that  a  traditional 
Bostonian  or  Virginian  might  irritate  it  by  being  pro- 
English.  The  only  difference  is  that  large  numbers  of 
pure  Irishmen  are  scattered  in  those  far  places,  and  large 
numbers  of  pure  Englishmen  are  not.  But  it  is  truest 
of  all  to  say  that  neither  England  nor  Ireland  so  much! 
as  crosses  the  mind  of  most  of  them  once  in  six  months. 
Painting  up  large  notices  of  'Watch  us  Grow,'  making 
money  by  farming  with  machinery,  together  with  an  oc 
casional  hold-up  with  six-shooters  and  photographs  of 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          131 

a  beautiful  murderess  or  divorcee,  fill  up  the  round  of 
their  good  and  happy  lives,  and  fleet  the  time  carelessly  as 
in  the  golden  age. 

But  putting  aside  all  this  vast  and  distant  democracy, 
which  is  the  real  'majority  of  Americans,'  and  confining 
ourselves  to  that  older  culture  on  the  eastern  coast  which 
the  critics  probably  had  in  mind,  we  shall  find  the  case 
more  comforting  but  not  to  be  covered  with  cheap  and 
false  comfort.  Now  it  is  perfectly  true  that  any  Eng 
lishman  coming  to  this  eastern  coast,  as  I  did,  finds  him 
self  not  only  most  warmly  welcomed  as  a  guest,  but  most 
cordially  complimented  as  an  Englishman.  Men  recall 
with  pride  the  branches  of  their  family  that  belong  to 
England  or  the  English  counties  where  they  were  rooted ; 
and  there  are  enthusiasms  for  English  literature  and  his 
tory  which  are  as  spontaneous  as  patriotism  itself. 
Something  of  this  may  be  put  down  to  a  certain  promp 
titude  and  flexibility  in  all  American  kindness,  which  is 
never  sufficiently  stodgy  to  be  called  good  nature.  The 
Englishman  does  sometimes  wonder  whether  if  he  had 
been  a  Russian,  his  hosts  would  not  have  remembered  re 
mote  Russian  aunts  and  uncles  and  disinterred  a  Musco 
vite  great-grandmother;  or  whether  if  he  had  come  from 
Iceland,  they  would  not  have  known  as  much  about  Ice 
landic  sagas  and  been  as  sympathetic  about  the  absence 
of  Icelandic  snakes.  But  with  a  fair  review  of  the  pro 
portions  of  the  case  he  will  dismiss  this  conjecture,  and 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  a  number  of  educated  Ameri 
cans  are  very  warmly  and  sincerely  sympathetic  with 
England. 

What  I  began  to  feel,  with  a  certain  creeping  chill, 
was  that  they  were  only  too  sympathetic  with  England. 
The  word  sympathetic  has  sometimes  rather  a  double 


I32  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

sense.  The  impression  I  received  was  that  all  these 
chivalrous  Southerners  and  men  mellow  with  Bostonian 
memories  were  rallying  to  England.  They  were  on  the 
defensive;  and  it  was  poor  old  England  that  they  were 
defending.  Their  attitude  implied  that  somebody  or 
something  was  leaving  her  undefended,  or  finding  her 
indefensible.  The  burden  of  that  hearty  chorus  was  that 
England  was  not  so  black  as  she  was  painted;  it  seemed 
clear  that  somewhere  or  other  she  was  being  painted 
pretty  black.  But  there  was  something  else  that  made 
me  uncomfortable;  it  was  not  only  the  sense  of  being 
somewhat  boisterously  forgiven;  it  was  also  something 
involving  questions  of  power  as  well  as  morality.  Then 
it  seemed  to  me  that  a  new  sensation  turned  me  hot  and 
cold;  and  I  felt  something  I  have  never  before  felt  in  a 
foreign  land.  Never  had  my  father  or  my  grandfather 
known  that  sensation;  never  during  the  great  and  com 
plex  and  perhaps  perilous  expansion  of  our  power  and 
commerce  in  the  last  hundred  years  had  an  Englishman 
heard  exactly  that  note  in  a  human  voice.  England  was 
being  pitied.  I,  as  an  Englishman,  was  not  only  being 
pardoned  but  pitied.  My  country  was  beginning  to  be 
an  object  of  compassion,  like  Poland  or  Spain.  My  first 
emotion,  full  of  the  mood  and  movement  of  a  hundred 
years,  was  one  of  furious  anger.  But  the  anger  has 
given  place  to  anxiety;  and  the  anxiety  is  not  yet  at  an 
end. 

It  is  not  my  business  here  to  expound  my  view  of 
English  politics,  still  less  of  European  politics  or  the 
politics  of  the  world;  but  to  put  down  a  few  impressions 
of  American  travel.  On  many  points  of  European  poli 
tics  the  impression  will  be  purely  negative ;  I  am  sure  that 
most  Americans  have  no  notion  of  the  position  of  France 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          133 

or  the  position  of  Poland.  But  if  English  readers  want 
the  truth,  I  am  sure  this  is  the  truth  about  their  notion 
of  the  position  of  England.  They  are  wondering,  or  those 
who  are  watching  are  wondering,  whether  the  term  of 
her  success  is  come  and  she  is  going  down  the  dark  road 
after  Prussia.  Many  are  sorry  if  this  is  so ;  some  are  glad 
if  it  is  so;  but  all  are  seriously  considering  the  probability 
of  its  being  so.  And  herein  lay  especially  the  horrible 
folly  of  our  Black-and-Tan  terrorism  over  the  Irish  peo 
ple.  I  have  noted  that  the  newspapers  told  us  that  Amer 
ica  had  been  chilled  in  its  Irish  sympathies  by  Irish  detach 
ment  during  the  war.  It  is  the  painful  truth  that  any 
advantage  we  might  have  had  from  this  we  ourselves 
immediately  proceeded  to  destroy.  Ireland  might  have 
put  herself  wrong  with  America  by  her  attitude  about 
Belgium,  if  England  had  not  instantly  proceeded  to  put 
herself  more  wrong  by  her  attitude  towards  Ireland.  It  is 
quite  true  that  two  blacks  do  not  make  a  white;  but  you 
cannot  send  a  black  to  reproach  people  with  tolerating 
blackness ;  and  this  is  quite  as  true  when  one  is  a  Black 
Brunswicker  and  the  other  a  Black-and-Tan.  It  is  true 
that  since  then  England  has  made  surprisingly  sweeping 
concessions ;  concessions  so  large  as  to  increase  the  amaze 
ment  that  the  refusal  should  have  been  so  long.  But 
unfortunately  the  combination  of  the  two  rather  clinches 
the  conception  of  our  decline.  If  the  concession  had 
come  before  the  terror,  it  would  have  looked  like  an 
attempt  to  emancipate,  and  would  probably  have  suc 
ceeded.  Coming  so  abruptly  after  the  terror,  it  looked 
only  like  an  attempt  to  tyrannise,  and  an  attempt  that 
failed.  It  was  partly  an  inheritance  from  a  stupid  tradi 
tion,  which  tried  to  combine  what  it  called  firmness  with 
what  it  called  conciliation;  as  if  when  we  made  up  our 


I34  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

minds  to  soothe  a  man  with  a  five-pound  note,  we  always 
took  care  to  undo  our  own  action  by  giving  him  a  kick  as 
well.  The  English  politician  has  often  done  that;  though 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  of  such  a  fool  except  that  he 
has  wasted  a  fiver.  But  in  this  case  he  gave  the  kick 
first,  received  a  kicking  in  return,  and  then  gave  up  the 
money;  and  it  was  hard  for  the  bystanders  to  say  any 
thing  except  that  he  had  been  badly  beaten.  The  com 
bination  and  sequence  of  events  seems  almost  as  if  it 
were  arranged  to  suggest  the  dark  and  ominous  par 
allel.  The  first  action  looked  only  too  like  the  invasion  of 
(Belgium,  and  the  second  like  the  evacuation  of  Belgium. 
So  that  vast  and  silent  crowd  in  the  West  looked  at  the 
British  Empire,  as  men  look  at  a  great  tower  that  has 
begun  to  lean.  Thus  it  was  that  while  I  found  real  pleas 
ure,  I  could  not  find  unrelieved  consolation  in  the  sincere 
compliments  paid  to  my  country  by  so  many  cultivated 
Americans ;  their  memories  of  homely  corners  of  historic 
counties  from  which  their  fathers  came,  of  the  cathe 
dral  that  dwarfs  the  town,  or  the  inn  at  the  turning  of 
the  road.  There  was  something  in  their  voices  and  the 
look  in  their  eyes  which  from  the  first  disturbed  me. 
So  I  have  heard  good  Englishmen,  who  died  afterwards 
the  death  of  soldiers,  cry  aloud  in  1914,  'It  seems  impos 
sible  of  those  jolly  Bavarians  P  or,  T  will  never  believe  it, 
when  I  think  of  the  time  I  had  at  Heidelberg !' 

But  there  are  other  things  besides  the  parallel  of  Prus 
sia  or  the  problem  of  Ireland.  The  American  press  is 
much  freer  than  our  own;  the  American  public  is  much 
more  familiar  with  the  discussion  of  corruption  than  our 
own;  and  it  is  much  more  conscious  of  the  corruption 
of  our  politics  than  we  are.  Almost  any  man  in  America 
may  talk  of  the  Marconi  Case;  many  a  man  in  England 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          135 

does  not  even  know  what  it  means.  Many  imagine  that 
it  had  something  to  do  with  the  propriety  of  politicians 
speculating  on  the  Stock  Exchange.  So  that  it  means 
a  great  deal  to  Americans  to  say  that  one  figure  in  that 
drama  is  ruling  India  and  another  is  ruling  Palestine, 
And  this  brings  me  to  another  problem,  which  is  also 
dealt  with  much  more  openly  in  America  than  in  England. 
I  mention  it  here  only  because  it  is  a  perfect  model  of  the 
misunderstandings  in  the  modern  world.  If  any  one  asks 
for  an  example  of  exactly  how  the  important  part  of  every 
story  is  left  out,  and  even  the  part  that  is  reported  is  not 
understood,  he  could  hardly  have  a  stronger  case  than 
the  story  of  Henry  Ford  of  Detroit. 
/*"When  I  was  in  Detroit  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting 
Mr.  Ford,  and  it  really  was  a  pleasure.  He  is  a  man 
I  quite  capable  of  views  which  I  think  silly  to  the  point  of 
insanity;  but  he  is  not  the  vulgar  benevolent  boss.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  he  is  a  millionaire;  but  he  cannot 
really  be  convicted  of  being  a  philanthropist.  He  is  not 
a  man  who  merely  wants  to  run  people;  it  is  rather  his 
views  that  run  him,  and  perhaps  run  away  with  him. 
He  has  a  distinguished  and  sensitive  face;  he  really  in 
vented  things  himself,  unlike  most  men  who  profit  by 
inventions ;  he  is  something  of  an  artist  and  not  a  little 
of  a  fighter.  A  man  of  that  type  is  always  capable  of 
being  wildly  wrong,  especially  in  the  sectarian  atmos 
phere  of  America;  and  Mr.  Ford  has  been  wrong  before 
and  may  be  wrong  now.  He  is  chiefly  known  in  Eng 
land  for  a  project  which  I  think  very  preposterous;  that 
of  the  Peace  Ship,  which  came  to  Europe  during  the  war. 
But  he  is  not  known  in  England  at  all  in  connection  with 
a  much  more  important  campaign,  which  he  has  conducted 
much  more  recently  and  with  much  more  success;  a 


136  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

campaign  against  the  Jews  like  one  of  the  Anti-Semitic 
campaigns  of  the  Continent.  Now  any  one  who  knows 
anything  of  America  knows  exactly  what  the  Peace  Ship 
would  be  like.  It  was  a  national  combination  of  imag 
ination  and  ignorance,  which  has  at  least  some  of  the 
beauty  of  innocence.  Men  living  in  those  huge  hedge- 
less  inland  plains  know  nothing  about  frontiers  or  the 
tragedy  of  a  fight  for  freedom;  they  know  nothing  of 
alarum  and  armament  or  the  peril  of  a  high  civilisation 
poised  like  a  precious  statue  within  reach  of  a  mailed 
fist.  They  are  accustomed  to  a  cosmopolitan  citizenship, 
in  which  men  of  all  bloods  mingle  and  in  which  men  of 
all  creeds  are  counted  equal.  Their  highest  moral  boast 
is  humanitarianism ;  their  highest  mental  boast  is  enlight 
enment.  In  a  word,  they  are  the  very  last  men  in  the 
world  who  would  seem  likely  to  pride  themselves  on  a 
prejudice  against  the  Jews.  They  have  no  religion  in 
particular,  except  a  sincere  sentiment  which  they  would 
call  'true  Christianity/  and  which  specially  forbids  an 
attack  on  the  Jews.  They  have  a  patriotism  which 
prides  itself  on  assimilating  all  types,  including  the  Jews. 
Mr.  Ford  is  a  pure  product  of  this  pacific  world,  as  was 
sufficiently  proved  by  his  pacifism.  If  a  man  of  that  sort 
has  discovered  that  there  is  a  Jewish  problem,  it  is  be 
cause  there  is  a  Jewish  problem.  It  is  certainly  not  be 
cause  there  is  an  Anti- Jewish  prejudice.  For  if  there 
had  been  any  amount  of  such  racial  and  religious  preju 
dice,  he  would  have  been  about  the  very  last  sort  of  man 
to  have  it.  His  particular  part  of  the  world  would  have 
been  the  very  last  place  to  produce  it.  We  may  well 
laugh  at  the  Peace  Ship,  and  its  wild  course  and  inevi 
table  shipwreck;  but  remember  that  its  very  wildness 
was  an  attempt  to  sail  as  far  as  possible  from  the  castle 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS         137 

of  Front-de-Boeuf.  Everything  that  made  him  Anti- 
War  should  have  prevented  him  from  being  Anti-Semite. 
,We  may  mock  him  for  being  mad  on  peace ;  but  we  can 
not  say  that  he  was  so  mad  on  peace  that  he  made  war 
on  Israel. 

It  happened  that,  when  I  was  in  America,  I  had  just 
published  some  studies  on  Palestine;  and  I  was  besieged 
by  Rabbis  lamenting  my  'prejudice.'  I  pointed  out  that 
they  would  have  got  hold  of  the  wrong  word,  even  if 
they  had  not  got  hold  of  the  wrong  man.  As  a  point 
of  personal  autobiography,  I  do  not  happen  to  be  a  man 
who  dislikes  Jews;  though  I  believe  that  some  men  do. 
I  have  had  Jews  among  my  most  intimate  and  faithful 
friends  since  my  boyhood,  and  I  hope  to  have  them  till  I 
die.  But  even  if  I  did  have  a  dislike  of  Jews,  it  would  be 
illogical  to  call  that  dislike  a  prejudice.  Prejudice  is  a 
very  lucid  Latin  word  meaning  the  bias  which  a  man  has 
before  he  considers  a  case.  I  might  be  said  to  be  prej 
udiced  against  a  Hairy  Ainu  because  of  his  name,  for 
I  have  never  been  on  terms  of  such  intimacy  with  him 
as  to  correct  my  preconceptions.  But  if  after  moving 
about  in  the  modern  world  and  meeting  Jews,  knowing 
about  Jews,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  did  not  like 
Jews,  my  conclusion  certainly  would  not  be  a  prejudice. 
It  would  simply  be  an  opinion ;  and  one  I  should  be  per 
fectly  entitled  to  hold;  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  do 
not  hold  it.  No  extravagance  of  hatred  merely  follow 
ing  on  experience  of  Jews  can  properly  be  called  a  prej 
udice. 

Now  the  point  is  that  this  new  American  Anti-Semit 
ism  springs  from  experience  and  nothing  but  experience. 
There  is  no  prejudice  for  it  to  spring  from.  Or  rather 
the  prejudice  is  all  the  other  way.  All  the  traditions  of 


138  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

that  democracy,  and  very  creditable  traditions  too,  are 
in  favour  of  toleration  and  a  sort  of  idealistic  indiffer 
ence.  The  sympathies  in  which  these  nineteenth-century 
people  were  reared  were  all  against  Front-de-Bceuf  and 
in  favour  of  Rebecca.  They  inherited  a  prejudice 
against  Anti-Semitism ;  a  prejudice  of  Anti- Anti-Sem 
itism.  These  people  of  the  plains  have  found  the  Jewish 
problem  exactly  as  they  might  have  struck  oil;  because 
it  is  there,  and  not  even  because  they  were  looking  for  it. 
Their  view  of  the  problem,  like  their  use  of  the  oil,  is 
not  always  satisfactory;  and  with  parts  of  it  I  entirely 
disagree.  But  the  point  is  that  the  thing  which  I  call  a 
problem,  and  others  call  a  prejudice,  has  now  appeared 
in  broad  daylight  in  a  new  country  where  there  is  no 
priestcraft,  no  feudalism,  no  ancient  superstition  to  ex 
plain  it.  It  has  appeared  because  it  is  a  problem;  and 
those  are  the  best  friends  of  the  Jews,  including  many 
of  the  Jews  themselves,  who  are  trying  to  find  a  solution. 
That  is  the  meaning  of  the  incident  of  Mr.  Henry  Ford 
of  Detroit;  and  you  will  hardly  hear  an  intelligible  word 
about  it  in  England. 

The  talk  of  prejudice  against  the  Japs  is  not  unlike 
the  talk  of  prejudice  against  the  Jews.  Only  in  this  case 
our  indifference  has  really  the  excuse  of  ignorance.  We 
used  to  lecture  the  Russians  for  oppressing  the  Jews, 
before  we  heard  the  word  Bolshevist  and  began  to  lecture 
them  for  being  oppressed  by  the  Jews.  In  the  same  way 
we  have  long  lectured  the  Calif ornians  for  oppressing 
the  Japs,  without  allowing  for  the  possibility  of  their 
foreseeing  that  the  oppression  may  soon  be  the  other  way. 
As  in  the  other  case,  it  may  be  a  persecution  but  it  is 
not  a  prejudice.  The  Calif  ornians  know  more  about  the 
Japanese  than  we  do;  and  our  own  colonists  when  they 


PRESIDENTS  AND  PROBLEMS          139 

are  placed  in  the  same  position  generally  say  the  same 
thing.  I  will  not  attempt  to  deal  adequately  here  with 
the  vast  international  and  diplomatic  problems  which 
arise  with  the  name  of  the  new  power  in  the  Far  East. 
It  is  possible  that  Japan,  having  imitated  European  mili 
tarism,  may  imitate  European  pacificism.  I  cannot  hon 
estly  pretend  to  know  what  the  Japanese  mean  by  the  one 
any  more  than  by  the  other.  But  when  Englishmen,  espe 
cially  English  Liberals  like  myself,  take  a  superior 
and  censorious  attitude  towards  Americans  and  espe 
cially  Calif ornians,  I  am  moved  to  make  a  final  remark. 
When  a  considerable  number  of  Englishmen  talk  of  the 
grave  contending  claims  of  our  friendship  with  Japan 
and  our  friendship  with  America,  when  they  finally  tend 
in  a  sort  of  summing  up  to  dwell  on  the  superior  virtues 
of  Japan,  I  may  be  permitted  to  make  a  single  comment. 
We  are  perpetually  boring  the  world  and  each  other 
with  talk  about  the  bonds  that  bind  us  to  America.  We 
are  perpetually  crying  aloud  that  England  and  America 
are  very  much  alike,  especially  England.  We  are  always 
insisting  that  the  two  are  identical  in  all  the  things  in. 
which  they  most  obviously  differ.  We  are  always  saying 
that  both  stand  for  democracy,  when  we  should  not  con 
sent  to.  stand  for  their  democracy  for  half  a  day.  We  are 
always  saying  that  at  least  we  are  all  Anglo-Saxons,  when 
we  are  descended  from  Romans  and  Normans  and  Brit 
ons  and  Danes,  and  they  are  descended  from  Irishmen 
and  Italians  and  Slavs  and  Germans.  We  tell  a  people 
whose  very  existence  is  a  revolt  against  the  British 
Crown  that  they  are  passionately  devoted  to  the  British 
Constitution.  We  tell  a  nation  whose  whole  policy  has 
been  isolation  and  independence  that  with  us  she  can  bear 
safely  the  White  Man's  Burden  of  the  universal  empire. 


140  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

We  tell  a  continent  crowded  with  Irishmen  to  thank  God 
that  the  Saxon  can  always  rule  the  Celt.  We  tell  a  popu 
lace  whose  very  virtues  are  lawless  that  together  we  up 
hold  the  Reign  of  Law.  We  recognise  our  own  law- 
abiding  character  in  people  who  make  laws  that  neither 
they  nor  anybody  else  can  abide.  We  congratulate  them 
on  clinging  to  all  they  have  cast  away,  and  on  imitating 
everything  which  they  came  into  existence  to  insult. 
And  when  we  have  established  all  these  nonsensical  anal 
ogies  with  a  non-existent  nation,  we  wait  until  there  is 
a  crisis  in  which  we  really  are  at  one  with  America,  and 
then  we  falter  and  threaten  to  fail  her.  In  a  battle  where 
we  really  are  of  one  blood,  the  blood  of  the  great  white 
race  throughout  the  world,  when  we  really  have  one  lan 
guage,  the  fundamental  alphabet  of  Cadmus  and  the 
script  of  Rome,  when  we  really  do  represent  the  same 
reign  of  law,  the  common  conscience  of  Christendom  and 
the  morals  of  men  baptized,  when  we  really  have  an  im 
plicit  faith  and  honour  and  type  of  freedom  to  summon 
up  our  souls  as  with  trumpets — then  many  of  us  begin 
to  weaken  and  waver  and  wonder  whether  there  is  not 
something  very  nice  about  little  yellow  men,  whose 
heroic  legends  revolved  round  polygamy  and  suicide,  and 
whose  heroes  wore  two  swords  and  worshipped  the  an 
cestors'  of  the  Mikado. 


PROHIBITION   IN   FACT   AND   FANCY 

I  WENT  ta  America  with  some  notion  of  not  discuss 
ing  Prohibition.  But  I  soon  found  that  well-to-do 
Americans  were  only  too  delighted*  to  discuss  it  over 
the  nuts  and  wine.  They  were  even  willing,  if  necessary, 
to  dispense  with  the  nuts.  I  am  far  from  sneering  at 
this ;  having  a  general  philosophy  which  need  not  here  be 
expounded,  but  which  may  be  symbolised  by  saying  that 
monkeys  can  enjoy  nuts  but  only  men  can  enjoy  wine. 
But  if  I  am  to  deal  with  Prohibition,  there  is  no  doubt  of 
the  first  thing  to  be  said  about  it.  The  first  thing  to  be 
said  about  it  is  that  it  does  not  exist.  It  is  to  some  extent 
enforced  among  the  poor;  at  any  rate  it  was  intended  to 
be  enforced  among  the  poor;  though  even  among  them  I 
fancy  it  is  much  evaded.  It  is  certainly  not  enforced 
among  the  rich;  and  I  doubt  whether  it  was  intended  to 
be.  I  suspect  that  this  has  always  happened  whenever 
this  negative  notion  has  taken  hold  of  some  particular 
province  or  tribe.  Prohibition  never  prohibits.  It  never 
has  in  history ;  not  even  in  Moslem  history ;  and  it  never 
will.  Mahomet  at  least  had  the  argument  of  a  climate 
and  not  the  interest  of  a  class.  But  if  a  test  is  needed, 
consider  what  part  of  Moslem  culture  has  passed  per 
manently  into  our  own  modern  culture.  You  will  find 
the  one  Moslem  poem  that  has  really  pierced  is  a  Moslem 
poem  in  praise  of  wine.  The  crown  of  all  the  victories 
of  the  Crescent  is  that  nobody  reads  the  Koran  and  every 
body  reads  the  Rubaiyat. 

141 


143  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Most  of  us  remember  with  satisfaction  an  old  picture 
in  Punch,  representing  a  festive  old  gentleman  in  a  state 
of  collapse  on  the  pavement,  and  a  philanthropic  old  lady 
anxiously  calling  the  attention  of  a  cabman  to  the  calam 
ity.  The  old  lady  says,  Tm  sure  this  poor  gentleman  is 
ill,'  and  the  cabman  replies  with  fervour,  '111!  I  wish  I 
'ad  'alf  'is  complaint.' 

We  talk  about  unconscious  humour;  but  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  unconscious  seriousness.  Flippancy  is  a 
flower  whose  roots  are  often  underground  in  the  sub- 
consciousness.  Many  a  man  talks  sense  when  he  thinks 
he  is  talking  nonsense;  touches  on  a  conflict  of  ideas  as 
if  it  were  only  a  contradiction  of  language,  or  really 
makes  a  parallel  when  he  means  only  to  make  a  pun. 
Some  of  the  Punch  jokes  of  the  best  period  are  examples 
of  this;  and  that  quoted  above  is  a  very  strong  example 
of  it.  The  cabman  meant  what  he  said;  but  he  said  a 
great  deal  more  than  he  meant.  His  utterance  contained 
fine  philosophical  doctrines  and  distinctions  of  which  he 
was  not  perhaps  entirely  conscious.  The  spirit  of  the 
English  language,  the  tragedy  and  comedy  of  the  con 
dition  of  the  English  people,  spoke  through  him  as  the 
god  spoke  through  a  teraph-head  or  brazen  mask  of 
oracle.  And  the  oracle  is  an  omen;  and  in  some  sense 
an  omen  of  doom. 

Observe,  to  begin  with,  the  sobriety  of  the  cabman. 
Note  his  measure,  his  moderation ;  or  to  use  the  yet  truer 
term,  his  temperance.  He  only  wishes  to  have  half  the 
old  gentleman's  complaint.  The  old  gentleman  is  wel 
come  to  the  other  half,  along  with  all  the  other  pomps  and 
luxuries  of  his  superior  social  station.  There  is  nothing 
Bolshevist  or  even  Communist  about  the  temperance  cab 
man.  He  might  almost  be  called  Distributist,  in  the  sense 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      143 

that  he  wishes  to  distribute  the  old  gentleman's  complaint 
more  equally  between  the  old  gentleman  and  himself. 
And,  of  course,  the  social  relations  there  represented  are 
very  much  truer  to  life  than  it  is  fashionable  to  suggest. 
By  the  realism  of  this  picture  Mr.  Punch  made  amends 
for  some  more  snobbish  pictures,  with  the  opposite  social 
moral.  It  will  remain  eternally  among  his  real  glories 
that  he  exhibited  a  picture  in  which  a  cabman  was  sober 
and  the  gentleman  was  drunk.  Despite  many  ideas  to 
the  contrary,  it  was  emphatically  a  picture  of  real  life. 
The  truth  is  subject  to  the  simplest  of  all  possible  tests. 
If  the  cabman  were  really  and  truly  drunk  he  would  not 
be  a  cabman,  for  he  could  not  drive  a  cab.  If  he  had 
the  whole  of  the  old  gentleman's  complaint,  he  would  be 
sitting  happily  on  the  pavement  beside  the  old  gentleman ; 
a  symbol  of  social  equality  found  at  last,  and  the  levelling 
of  all  classes  of  mankind.  I  do  not  say  that  there  has 
never  been  such  a  monster  known  as  a  drunken  cabman ; 
I  do  not  say  that  the  driver  may  not  sometimes  have 
approximated  imprudently  to  three-quarters  of  the  com 
plaint,  instead  of  adhering  to  his  severe  but  wise  concep 
tion  of  half  of  it.  But  I  do  say  that  most  men  of  the 
world,  if  they  spoke  sincerely,  oould  testify  to  more  ex 
amples  of  helplessly  drunken  gentlemen  put  inside  of  cabs 
than  of  helplessly  drunken  drivers  on  top  of  them.  Phil 
anthropists  and  officials,  who  never  look  at  people  but  only 
at  papers,  probably  have  a  mass  of  social  statistics  to  the 
contrary ;  founded  on  the  simple  fact  that  cabmen  can  be 
cross-examined  about  their  habits  and  gentlemen  cannot. 
Social  workers  probably  have  the  whole  thing  worked 
out  in  sections  and  compartments,  showing  how  the  ex 
treme  intoxication  of  cabmen  compares  with  the  parallel 
intoxication  of  costermongers  •,  or  measuring  the  drunken- 


144  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ness  of  a  dustman  against  the  drunkenness  of  a  crossing- 
sweeper.  But  there  is  more  practical  experience  embod 
ied  in  the  practical  speech  of  the  English;  and  in  the  pro 
verb  that  says  'as  drunk  as  a  lord.' 

Now  Prohibition,  whether  as  a  proposal  in  England 
or  a  pretence  in  America,  simply  means  that  the  man  who 
has  drunk  less  shall  have  no  drink,  and  the  man  who  has 
drunk  more  shall  have  all  the  drink.  It  means  that  the 
old  gentleman  shall  be  carried  home  in  a  cab  drunker  than 
ever;  but  that,  in  order  to  make  it  quite  safe  for  him  to 
drink  to  excess,  the  man  who  drives  him  shall  be  for 
bidden  to  drink  even  in  moderation.  That  is  what  it 
means;  that  is  all  it  means;  that  is  all  it  ever  will  mean. 
It  means  that  often  in  Islam;  where  the  luxurious  and 
advanced  drink  champagne,  while  the  poor  and  fanatical 
drink  water.  It  means  that  in  modern  America;  where 
the  wealthy  are  all  at  this  moment  sipping  their  cocktails, 
and  discussing  how  much  harder  labourers  can  be  made 
to  work  if  only  they  can  be  kept  from  festivity.  This 
is  what  it  means  and  all  it  means;  and  men  are  divided 
about  it  according  to  whether  they  believe  in  a  certain 
transcendental  concept  called  'justice/  expressed  in  a 
more  mystical  paradox  as  the  equality  of  men.  So 
long  as  you  do  not  believe  in  justice,  and  so  long  as 
you  are  rich  and  really  confident  of  remaining  so, 
you  can  have  Prohibition  and  be  as  drunk  as  you 
choose. 

I  see  that  some  remarks  by  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell, 
dealing  with  social  conditions  in  America,  are  reported 
in  the  press.  They  include  some  observations  about  Sinn 
Fein  in  which,  as  in  most  of  Mr.  Campbell's  allusions  to 
Ireland,  it  is  not  difficult  to  detect  his  dismal  origin,  or 
the  acrid  smell  of  the  smoke  of  Belfast.  But  the  re- 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      145 

marks  about  America  are  valuable  in  the  objective  sense, 
over  and  above  their  philosophy.  He  believes  that  Pro 
hibition  will  survive  and  be  a  success,  nor  does  he  seem 
himself  to  regard  the  prospect  with  any  special  disfavour. 
But  he  frankly  and  freely  testifies  to  the  truth  I  have 
asserted;  that  Prohibition  does  not  prohibit,  so  far  as 
the  wealthy  are  concerned.  He  testifies  to  constantly  see 
ing  wine  on  the  table,  as  will  any  other  grateful  guest  of 
the  generous  hospitality  of  America;  and  he  implies 
humorously  that  he  asked  no  questions  about  the  story 
told  him  of  the  old  stocks  in  -the  cellars.  So  there  is  no 
dispute  about  the  facts;  and  we  come  back  as  before  to 
the  principles.  Is  Mr.  Campbell  content  with  a  Prohibi 
tion  which  is  another  name  for  Privilege?  If  so,  he  has 
simply  absorbed  along  with  his  new  theology  a  new 
morality  which  is  different  from  mine.  But  he  does  state 
both  sides  of  the  inequality  with  equal  logic  and  clearness ; 
and  in  these  days  of  intellectual  fog  that  alone  is  like  a 
ray  of  sunshine. 

Now  my  primary  objection  to  Prohibition  is  not  based 
on  any  arguments  against  it,  but  on  the  one  argument  for 
it.  I  need  nothing  more  for  its  condemnation  than  the 
only  thing  that  is  said  in  its  defence.  It  is  said  by  cap 
italists  all  over  America;  and  it  is  very  clearly  and  cor 
rectly  reported  by  Mr.  Campbell  himself.  The  argument 
is  that  employees  work  harder,  and  therefore  employers 
get  richer.  That  this  idea  should  be  taken  calmly,  by 
itself,  as  the  test  or  a  problem  of  liberty,  is  in  itself  a 
final  testimony  to  the  presence  of  slavery.  It  shows 
that  people  have  completely  forgotten  that  there  is  any 
other  test  except  the  servile  test.  Employers  are  willing 
that  workmen  should  have  exercise,  as  it  may  help  them 
to  do  more  work.  They  are  even  willing  that  workmen 


146  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

should  Have  leisure;  for  the  more  intelligent  capitalists 
can  see  that  this  also  really  means  that  they  can  do  more 
work.  But  they  are  not  in  any  way  willing  that  workmen 
should  have  fun;  for  fun  only  increases  the  happiness 
and  not  the  utility  of  the  worker.  Fun  is  freedom;  and 
in  that  sense  is  an  end  in  itself.  It  concerns  the  man 
not  as  a  worker  but  as  a  citizen,  or  even  as  a  soul ;  and 
the  soul  in  that  sense  is  an  end  in  itself.  That  a  man 
shall  have  a  reasonable  amount  of  comedy  and  poetry  and 
even  fantasy  in  his  life  is  part  of  his  spiritual  health, 
which  is  for  the  service  of  God;  and  not  merely  for  his 
mechanical  health,  which  is  now  bound  to  the  service  of 
man.  The*  very  test  adopted  has  all  the  servile  implica 
tion;  the  test  of  what  we  can  get  out  of  him,  instead  of 
the  test  of  what  he  can  get  out  of  life. 

Mr.  Campbell  is  reported  to  have  suggested,  doubt 
less  rather  as  a  conjecture  than  a-  prophecy,  that  England 
may  find  it  necessary  to  become  teetotal  in  order  to 
compete  commercially  with  the  efficiency  and  economy 
of  teetotal  America.  Well,  in  the  eighteenth  and  early 
nineteenth  centuries  there  was  in  America  one  of  the 
most  economical  and*  efficient  of  all  forms  of  labour.  It 
did  not  happen  to  be  feasible  for  the  English  to  compete 
with  it  by  copying  it.  There  were  so  many  humanitarian 
prejudices  about  in  those  days.  But  economically  there 
seems  to  be  no  reason  why  a  man  should  not  have  proph 
esied  that  England  would  be  forced  to  adopt  American 
Slavery  then,  as  she  is  urged  to  adopt  American  Pro 
hibition  now.  Perhaps  such  a  prophet  would  have  proph 
esied  rightly.  Certainly  it  is  not  impossible  that  uni 
versal  Slavery  might  have  been  the  vision  of  Calhoun 
as  universal  Prohibition  seems  to  be  the  vision  of  Camp 
bell.  The  old  England  of  1830  would  have  said  that 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      147 

such  a  plea  for  Slavery  was  monstrous;  but  what  would 
it  have  said  of  a  plea  for  enforced  water-drinking? 
Nevertheless,  the  nobler  Servile  State  of  Calhoun  col 
lapsed  before  it  could  spread  to  Europe.  And  there  is 
always  the  hope  that  the  same  may  happen  to  the  far 
more  materialistic  Utopia  of  Mr.  Campbell  and  Soft 
Drinks. 

Abstract  morality  is  very  important;  and  it  may  well 
clear  the  mind  to  consider  what  would  be  the  effect  of 
Prohibition  in  America  if  it  were  introduced  there.  It 
would,  of  course,  be  a  decisive  departure  from  the  tradi 
tion  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Those  who 
deny  that  are  hardly  serious  enough  to  demand  attention. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  they  are  reduced  to  minimising 
that  document  in  defence  of  Prohibition,  exactly  as  the 
slave-owners  were  reduced  to  minimising  it  in  defence 
of  Slavery.  They  are  reduced  to  saying  that  the  Fathers 
of  the  Republic  meant  no  more  than  that  they  would  not 
be  ruled  by  a  king.  And  they  are  obviously  open  to  the 
reply  which  Lincoln  gave  to  Douglas  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion;  that  if  that  great  charter  was  limited  to  certain 
events  in  the  eighteenth  century,  it  ,was  hardly  worth 
making  such  a  fuss  about  in  the  nineteenth — or  in  the 
twentieth.  But  they  are  also  open  to  another  reply  which 
is  even  more  to  the  point,  when  they  pretend  that  Jeffer 
son's  famous  preamble  only  means  to  say  that  monarchy 
is  wrong.  They  are  maintaining  that  Jefferson  only 
meant  to  say  something  that  he  does  not  say  at  all.  The 
great  preamble  does  not  say  that  all  monarchical  govern 
ment  must  be  wrong;  on  the  contrary,  it  rather  implies 
that  most  government  is  right.  It  speaks  of  human 
governments  in  general  as  justified  by  the  necessity  of  de 
fending  certain  personal  rights.  I  see  no  reason  what- 


148  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ever  to  suppose  that  it  would  not  include  any  royal 
government  that  does  defend  those  rights.  Still  less  do 
I  doubt  what  it  would  say  of  a  republican  government 
that  does  destroy  those  rights. 

But  what  are  those  rights?  Sophists  can  always  de 
bate  about  their  degree;  but  even  sophists  cannot  debate 
about  their  direction.  Nobody  in  his  five  wits  will  deny 
that  Jeffersonian  democracy  wished  to  give  the  law  a 
general  control  in  more  public  things,  but  the  citizens  a 
more  general  liberty  in  private  things.  Wherever  we 
draw  the  line,  liberty  can  only  be  personal  liberty;  and 
the  most  personal  liberties  must  at  least  be  the  last  liber 
ties  we  lose.  But  to-day  they  are  the  first  liberties  we 
lose.  It  is  not  a  question  of  drawing  the  line  in  the  right 
place,  but  of  beginning  at  the  wrong  end.  What  are  the 
rights  of  man,  if  they  do  not  include  the  normal  right 
to  regulate  his  own  health,  in  relation  to  the  normal  risks 
of  diet  and  daily  life?  Nobody  can  pretend  that  beer  is 
a  poison  as  prussic  acid  is  a  poison;  that  all  the  millions 
of  civilized  men  who  drank  it  all  fell  down  dead  when 
they  had  touched  it.  Its  use  and  abuse  is  obviously  a 
matter  of  judgment;  and  there  can  be  no  personal  liberty, 
if  it  is  not  a  matter  of  private  judgment.  It  is  not  in 
the  least  a  question  of  drawing  the  line  between  liberty 
and  licence.  If  this  is  licence,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
liberty.  It  is  plainly  impossible  to  find  any  right  more 
individual  or  intimate.  To  say  that  a  man  has  a 
right  to  a  vote,  but  not  a  right  to  a  voice  about  the  choice 
of  his  dinner,  is  like  saying  that  he  has  a  right  to  his 
hat  but  not  a  right  to  his  head. 

Prohibition,  therefore,  plainly  violates  the  rights  of 
man,  if  there  are  any  rights  of  man.  What  its  suppor 
ters  really  mean  is  that  there  are  none.  And  in  sttg- 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      149 

gesting  this,  they  have  all  the  advantages  that  every  scep 
tic  has  when  he  supports  a  negation.  That  sort  of  ulti 
mate  scepticism  can  only  be  retorted  upon  itself,  and  we 
can  point  out  to  them  that  they  can  no  more  prove  the 
right  of  the  city  to  be  oppressive  than  we  can  prove  the 
right  of  the  citizen  to  be  free.  In  the  primary  meta 
physics  of  such  a  claim,  it  would  surely  be  easier  to  make 
it  out  for  a  single  conscious  soul  than  for  an  artificial 
social  combination.  If  there  are  no  rights  of  men,  what 
are  the  rights  of  nations?  Perhaps  a  nation  has  no 
claim  to  self-government.  Perhaps  it  has  no  claim  to 
good  government.  Perhaps  it  has  no  claim  to  any  sort 
of  government  or  any  sort  of  independence.  Perhaps 
they  will  say  that  is  not  implied  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  But  without  going  deep  into  my  reasons 
for  believing  in  natural  rights,  or  rather  in  supernatural 
rights  (and  Jefferson  certainly  states  them  as  super 
natural),  I  am  content  here  to  note  that  a  man's  treat 
ment  of  his  own  body,  in  relation  to  tradition  and  or 
dinary  opportunities  for  bodily  excess,  is  as  near  to  his 
self-respect  as  social  coercion  can  possibly  go;  and  that 
when  that  is  gone  there  is  nothing  left.  If  coercion 
applies  to  that,  it  applies  to  everything ;  and  in  the  future 
of  this  controversy  it  obviously  will  apply  to  everything. 
When  I  was  in  America,  people  were  already  applying  it 
to  tobacco.  I  never  can  see  why  they  should  not  apply 
it  to  talking.  Talking  often  goes  with  tobacco  as  it  goes 
with  beer;  and  what  is  more  relevant,  talking  may  often 
lead  both  to  beer  and  tobacco.  Talking  often  drives  a 
man  to  drink,  both  negatively  in  the  form  of  nagging 
and  positively  in  the  form  of  bad  company.  If  the 
American  Puritan  is  so  anxious  to  be  a  censor  morum,  he 
should  obviously  put  a  stop  to  the  evil  communications 


150  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

that  really  corrupt  good  manners.  He  should  reintro- 
duce  the  Scold's  Bridle  among  the  other  Blue  Laws  for 
a  land  of  blue  devils.  He  should  gag  all  gay  deceivers 
and  plausible  cynics;  he  should  cut  off  all  flattering  lips 
and  the  tongue  that  speaketh  proud  things.  Nobody  can 
doubt  that  nine-tenths  of  the  harm  in  the  world  is  done 
simply  by  talking.  Jefferson  and  the  old  democrats 
allowed  people  to  talk,  not  because  they  were  unaware 
of  this  fact,  but  because  they  were  fettered  by  this  old 
fancy  of  theirs  about  freedom  and  the  rights  of  man. 
But  since  we  have  already  abandoned  that  doctrine  in  a 
final  fashion,  I  cannot  see  why  the  new  principle  should 
not  be  applied  intelligently;  and  in  that  case  it  would  be 
applied  to  the  control  of  conversation.  The  State  would 
provide  us  with  forms  already  filled  up  with  the  subjects 
suitable  for  us  to  discuss  at  breakfast;  perhaps  allowing 
us  a  limited  number  of  epigrams  each.  Perhaps  we 
should  have  to  make  a  formal  application  in  writing,  to 
be  allowed  to  make  a  joke  that  had  just  occurred  to  us  in 
conversation.  And  the  committee  would  consider  it  in 
due  course.  Perhaps  it  would  be  effected  in  a  more 
practical  fashion,  and  the  private  citizens  would  be  shut 
up  as  the  public-houses  were  shut  up.  Perhaps  they 
would  all  wear  gags,  which  the  policeman  would  remove 
at  stated  hours ;  and  their  mouths  would  be  opened  from 
one  to  three,  as  now  in  England  even  the  public-houses 
are  from  time  to  time  accessible  to  the  public.  To  some 
this  will  sound  fantastic ;  but  not  so  fantastic  as  Jefferson 
would  have  thought  Prohibition.  But  there  is  one  sense 
in  which  it  is  indeed  fantastic,  for  by  hypothesis  it  leaves 
out  the  favouritism  that  is  the  fundamental  of  the  whole 
matter.  The  only  sense  in  which  we  can  say  that  logic 
will  never  go  so  far  as  this  is  that  logic  will  never  go  the 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      151 

length  of  equality.  It  is  perfectly  possible  that  the  same 
forces  that  have  forbidden  beer  may  go  on  to  forbid 
tobacco.  But  they  will  in  a  special  and  limited  sense 
forbid  tobacco — but  not  cigars.  Or  at  any  rate  not  ex 
pensive  cigars.  In  America,  where  large  numbers  of 
ordinary  men  smoke  rather  ordinary  cigars,  there  would 
be  doubtless  a  good  opportunity  of  penalising  a  very 
ordinary  pleasure.  But  the  Havanas  of  the  millionaire 
will  be  all  right.  So  it  will  be  if  ever  the  Puritans  bring 
back  the  Scold's  Bridle  and  the  statutory  silence  of  the 
populace.  It  will  only  be  the  populace  that  is  silent. 
The  politicians  will  go  on  talking. 

These  I  believe  to  be  the  broad  facts  of  the  problem 
of  Prohibition;  but  it  would  not  be  fair  to  leave  it  with 
out  mentioning  two  other  causes  which,  if  not  defences, 
are  at  least  excuses.  The  first  is  that  Prohibition  was 
largely  passed  in  a  sort  of  fervour  or  fever  of  self-sacri 
fice,  which  was  a  part  of  the  passionate  patriotism  of 
America  in  the  war.  As  I  have  remarked  elsewhere, 
those  who  have  any  notion  of  what  that  national  una 
nimity  was  like  will  smile  when  they  see  America  made  a 
model  of  mere  international  idealism.  Prohibition  was 
partly  a  sort  of  patriotic  renunciation;  for  the  popular 
instinct,  like  every  poetic  instinct,  always  tends  at  great 
crises  to  great  gestures  of  renunciation.  But  this  very 
fact,  while  it  makes  the  inhumanity  far  more  human, 
makes  it  far  less  final  and  convincing.  Men  cannot  re 
main  standing  stiffly  in  such  symbolical  attitudes ;  nor  can 
a  permanent  policy  be  founded  on  something  analogous 
to  flinging  a  gauntlet  or  uttering  a  battle-cry.  We  might 
as  well  expect  all  the  Yale  students  to  remain  through 
life  with  their  mouths  open,  exactly  as  they  were  when 
they  uttered  the  college  yell.  It  would  be  as  reasonable 


i'S2  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

as  to  expect  them  to  remain  through  life  with  their 
mouths  shut,  while  the  wine-cup  which  has  been  the  sac 
rament  of  all  poets  and  lovers  passed  round  among  all  the 
youth  of  the  world.  This  point  appeared  very  plainly 
in  a  discussion  I  had  with  a  very  thoughtful  and  sympa 
thetic  American  critic,  a  clergyman  writing  in  an  Anglo- 
Catholic  magazine.  He  put  the  sentiment  of  these 
healthier  Prohibitionists,  which  had  so  much  to  do  with 
the  passing  of  Prohibition,  by  asking,  'May  not  a  man 
who  is  asked  to  give  up  his  blood  for  his  country  be 
asked  to  give  up  his  beer  for  his  country?'  And  this 
phrase  clearly  illuminates  all  the  limitations  of  the  case. 
I  have  never  denied,  in  principle,  that  it  might  in  some 
abnormal  crisis  be  lawful  for  a  government  to  lock  up  the 
beer,  or  to  lock  up  the  bread.  In  that  sense  I  am  quite 
prepared  to  treat  the  sacrifice  of  beer  in  the  same  way  as 
the  sacrifice  of  blood.  But  is  my  American  critic  really 
ready  to  treat  the  sacrifice  of  blood  in  the  same  way  as 
the  sacrifice  of  beer?  Is  bloodshed  to  be  as  prolonged 
and  protracted  as  Prohibition?  Is  the  normal  non-com 
batant  to  shed  his  gore  as  often  as  he  misses  his  drink? 
I  can  imagine  people  submitting  to  a  special  regulation, 
as  I  can  imagine  them  serving  in  a  particular  war.  I  do 
indeed  despise  the  political  knavery  that  deliberately 
passes  drink  regulations  as  war  measures  and  then  pre 
serves  them  as  peace  measures.  But  that  is  not  a  ques 
tion  of  whether  drink  and  drunkenness  are  wrong,  but 
of  whether  lying  and  swindling  are  wrong.  But  I  never 
denied  that  there  might  need  to  be  exceptional  sacrifices 
for  exceptional  occasions ;  and  war  is  in  its  nature  an  ex 
ception.  Only,  if  war  is  the  exception,  why  should  Pro 
hibition  be  the  rule?  If  the  surrender  of  beer  is  worthy 
to  be  compared  to  the  shedding  of  blood,  why  then  blood 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      153 

ought  to  be  flowing  for  ever  like  a  fountain  in  the  public 
squares  of  Philadelphia  and  New  York.  If  my  critic 
wants  to  complete  his  parallel,  he  must  draw  up  rather  a 
a  remarkable  programme  for  the  daily  life  of  the  ordi 
nary  citizens.  He  must  suppose  that,  through  all  their 
lives,  they  are  paraded  every  day  at  lunch  time  and  prod 
ded  with  bayonets  to  show  that  they  will  shed  their  blood 
for  their  country.  He  must  suppose  that  every  evening, 
after  a  light  repast  of  poison  gas  and  shrapnel,  they  are 
made  to  go  to  sleep  in  a  trench  under  a  permanent  drizzle 
of  shell-fire.  It  is  surely  obvious  that  if  this  were  the 
normal  life  of  the  citizen,  the  citizen  would  have  no  nor 
mal  life.  The  common  sense  of  the  thing  is  that  sacri 
fices  of  this  sort  are  admirable  but  abnormal.  It  is  not 
normal  for  the  State  to  be  perpetually  regulating  our 
days  with  the  discipline  of  a  fighting  regiment;  and  it  is 
not  normal  for  the  State  to  be  perpetually  regulating  our 
diet  with  the  discipline  of  a  famine.  To  say  that  every 
citizen  must  be  subject  to  control  in  such  bodily  things  is 
like  saying  that  every  Christian  ought  to  tear  himself 
with  red-hot  pincers  because  the  Christian  martyrs  did 
their  duty  in  time  of  persecution.  A  man  has  a  right  to 
control  his  body,  though  in  a  time  of  martyrdom  he  may 
give  his  body  to  be  burned;  and  a  man  has  a  right  to 
control  his  bodily  health,  though  in  a  state  of  siege  he 
may  give  his  body  to  be  starved.  Thus,  though  the  pa 
triotic  defence  was  a  sincere  defence,  it  is  a  defence  that 
comes  back  on  the  defenders  like  a  boomerang.  For  it 
proves  only  that  Prohibition  ought  to  be  ephemeral,  un 
less  war  ought  to  be  eternal. 

The  other  excuse  is  much  less  romantic  and  much 
more  realistic.  I  have  already  said  enough  of  the  cause 
which  is  really  realistic.  The  real  power  behind  Prohibi- 


154  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

tion  is  simply  the  plutocratic  power  of  the  pushing  em 
ployers  who  wish  to  get  the  last  inch  of  work  out  of  their 
workmen.  But  before  the  progress  of  modern  plutocracy 
had  reached  this  stage,  there  was  a  predetermining  cause 
for  which  there  was  a  much  better  case.  The  whole  busi 
ness  began  with  the  problem  of  black  labour.  I  have  not 
attempted  in  this  book  to  deal  adequately  with  the  ques 
tion  of  the  negro.  I  have  refrained  for  a  reason  that 
may  seem  somewhat  sensational;  that  I  do  not  think  I 
have  anything  particularly  valuable  to  say  or  suggest. 
I  do  not  profess  to  understand  this  singularly  dark  and 
intricate  matter;  and  I  see  no  use  in  men  who  have  no 
solution  filling  up  the  gap  with  sentimentalism.  The 
chief  thing  that  struck  me  about  the  coloured  people  I 
saw  was  their  charming  and  astonishing  cheerfulness. 
My  sense  of  pathos  was  appealed  to  much  more  by  the 
Red  Indians ;  and  indeed  I  wish  I  had  more  space  here  to 
do  justice  to  the  Red  Indians.  They  did  heroic  service 
in  the  war;  and  more  than  justified  their  glorious  place 
in  the  day-dreams  and  nightmares  of  our  boyhood.  But 
the  negro  problem  certainly  demands  more  study  than  a 
sight-seer  could  give  it;  and  this  book  is  controversial 
enough  about  things  that  I  have  really  considered,  with 
out  permitting  it  to  exhibit  me  as  a  sight-seer  who  shoots 
at  sight.  But  I  believe  that  it  was  always  common 
ground  to  people  of  common  sense  that  the  enslavement 
and  importation  of  negroes  had  been  the  crime  and  ca 
tastrophe  of  American  history.  The  only  difference  was 
originally  that  one  side  thought  that,  the  crime  once  com 
mitted,  the  only  reparation  was  their  freedom;  while  the 
other  thought  that,  the  crime  once  committed,  the  only 
safety  was  their  slavery.  It  was  only  comparatively 
lately,  by  a  process  I  shall  have  to  indicate  elsewhere, 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY      155 

that  anything  like  a  positive  case  for  slavery  became  pos 
sible.  Now  among  the  many  problems  of  the  presence 
of  an  alien  and  at  least  recently  barbaric  figure  among 
the  citizens,  there  was  a  very  real  problem  of  drink. 
Drink  certainly  has  a  very  exceptionally  destructive  effect 
upon  negroes  in  their  native  countries ;  and  it  was  alleged 
to  have  a  peculiarly  demoralising  effect  upon  negroes  in 
the  United  States;  to  call  up  the  passions  that  are  the 
particular  temptation  of  the  race  and  to  lead  to  appalling 
outrages  that  are  followed  by  appalling  popular  vengeance. 
However  this  may  be,  many  of  the  states  of  the  Ameri 
can  Union,  which  first  forbade  liquor  to  citizens,  meant 
simply  to  forbid  it  to  negroes.  But  they  had  not  the 
moral  courage  to  deny  that  negroes  are  citizens.  About 
all  their  political  expedients  necessarily  hung  the  load 
that  hangs  on  so  much  of  modern  politics:  hypocrisy. 
The  superior  race  had  to  rule  by  a  sort  of  secret  society 
organised  against  the  inferior.  The  American  politicians 
dared  not  disfranchise  thei  negroes ;  so  they  coerced  every 
body  in  theory  and  only  the  negroes  in  practice.  The 
drinking  of  the  white  men  became  as  much  a  conspiracy 
as  the  shooting  by  the  white  horsemen  of  the  Ku-Klux- 
Klan.  And  in  that  connection,  it  may  be  remarked  in 
passing  that  the  comparison  illustrates  the  idiocy  of  sup 
posing  that  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  will  ever  support 
the  prohibition  of  drinking  as  if  it  were  something  like 
the  prohibition  of  shooting.  Shooting  in  America  is 
liable  to  take  a  free  form,  and  sometimes  a  very  horrible 
form;  as  when  private  bravos  were  hired  to  kill  workmen 
in  the  capitalistic  interests  of  that  pure  patron  of  disar 
mament,  Carnegie.  But  when  some  of  the  rich  Ameri 
cans  gravely  tell  us  that  their  drinking  cannot  be  interfered 
with,  because  they  are  only  using  up  their  existing  stocks 


156  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  wine,  we  may  well  be  disposed  to  smile.  When  I  was 
there,  at  any  rate,  they  were  using  them  up  very  fast; 
and  with  no  apparent  fears  about  the  supply.  But  if 
the  Ku-Klux-Klan  had  started  suddenly  shooting  every 
body  they  didn't  like  in  broad  daylight,  and  had  blandly 
explained  that  they  were  only  using  up  the  stocks  of  their 
ammunition,  left  over  from  the  Civil  War,  it  seems  prob 
able  that  there  would  at  least  have  been  a  little  curiosity 
about  how  much  they  had  left.  There  might  at  least 
have  been  occasional  inquiries  about  how  long  it  was 
likely  to  go  on.  It  is  even  conceivable  that  some  steps 
might  have  been  taken  to  stop  it. 

No  steps  are  taken  to  stop  the  drinking  of  the  rich, 
chiefly  because  the  rich  now  make  all  the  rules  and  there 
fore  all  the  exceptions,  but  partly  because  nobody  ever 
could  feel  the  full  moral  seriousness  of  this  particular 
rule.  And  the  truth  is,  as  I  have  indicated,  that  it  was 
originally  established  as  an  exception  and  not  as  a  rule. 
The  emancipated  negro  was  an  exception  in  the  commu 
nity,  and  a  certain  plan  was,  rightly  or  wrongly,  adopted 
to  meet  his  case.  A  law  was  made  professedly  for  every 
body  and  practically  only  for  him.  Prohibition  is  only 
important  as  marking  the  transition  by  which  the  trick, 
tried  successfully  on  black  labour,  could  be  extended  to 
all  labour.  We  in  England  have  no  right  to  be  Phari 
saic  at  the  expense  of  the  Americans  in  this  matter;  for 
we  have  tried  the  same  trick  in  a  hundred  forms.  The 
true  philosophical  defence  of  the  modern  oppression  of 
the  poor  would  be  to  say  frankly  that  we  have  ruled 
them  so  badly  that  they  are  unfit  to  rule  themselves. 
But  no  modern  oligarch  is  enough  of  a  man  to  say  this. 

For  like  all  virile  cynicism  it  would  have  an  element 
of  humility;  which  would  not  mix  with  the  necessary 


PROHIBITION  IN  FACT  AND  FANCY     157 

element  of  hypocrisy.  So  we  proceed,  just  as  the  Ameri 
cans  do,  to  make  a  law  for  everybody  and  then  evade 
it  for  ourselves.  We  have  not  the  honesty  to  say  that 
the  rich  may  bet  because  they  can  afford  it ;  so  we  forbid 
any  man  to  bet  in  any  place ;  and  then  say  that  a  place  is 
not  a  place.  It  is  exactly  as  if  there  were  an  American 
law  allowing  a  negro  to  be  murdered  because  he  is  not  a 
man  within  the  meaning  of  the  Act.  We  have  not  the 
honesty  to  drive  the  poor  to  school  because  they  are  ignor 
ant  ;  so  we  pretend  to  drive  everybody ;  and  then  send  in 
spectors  to  the  slums  but  not  to  the  smart  streets.  We 
apply  the  same  ingenuous  principle;  and  are  quite  as  un 
democratic  as  Western  democracy.  Nevertheless  there  is 
an  element  in  the  American  case  which  cannot  be  present 
in  ours ;  and  this  chapter  may  well  conclude  upon  so  im 
portant  a  change. 

America  can  now  say  with  pride  that  she  has  abolished 
the  colour  bar.  In  this  matter  the  white  labourer  and  the 
black  labourer  have  at  last  been  put  upon  an  equal  social 
footing.  White  labour  is  every  bit  as  much  enslaved  as 
black  labour ;  and  is  actually  enslaved  by  a  method  and  a 
model  only  intended  for  black  labour.  We  might  think 
it  rather  odd  if  the  exact  regulations  about  flogging  ne 
groes  were  reproduced  as  a  plan  for  punishing  strikers; 
or  if  industrial  arbitration  issued  its  reports  in  the  precise 
terminology  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  But  this  is  in 
essentials  what  has  happened ;  and  one  could  almost  fancy 
some  negro  orgy  of  triumph,  with  the  beating  of  gongs 
and  all  the  secret  violence  of  Voodoo,  crying  aloud  to 
some  ancestral  Mumbo  Jumbo  that  the  Poor  White  Trash 
was  being  treated  according  to  its  name. 


FADS   AND  PUBLIC   OPINION 


FOREIGNER  is  a  man  who  laughs  at  every 
thing  except  jokes.  He  is  perfectly  entitled 
to  laugh  at  anything,  so  long  as  he  realises,  in 
a  reverent  and  religious  spirit,  that  he  himself  is  laughable. 
I  was  a  foreigner  in  America ;  and  I  can  truly  claim  that 
the  sense  of  my  own  laughable  position  never  left  me. 
But  when  the  native  and  the  foreign  have  finished  with 
seeing  the  fun  of  each  other  in  things  that  are  meant  to  be 
serious,  they  both  approach  the  far  more  delicate  and  dan 
gerous  ground  of  things  that  are  meant  to  be  funny.  The 
sense  of  humour  is  generally  very  national;  perhaps  that 
is  why  the  internationalists  are  so  careful  to  purge  them 
selves  of  it.  I  had  occasion  during  the  war  to  consider 
the  rights  and  wrongs  of  certain  differences  alleged  to 
have  arisen  between  the  English  and  American  soldiers 
at  the  front.  And,  rightly  or  wrongly,  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  they  arose  from  the  failure  to  understand 
when  a  foreigner  is  serious  and  when  he  is  humorous. 
And  it  is  in  the  very  nature  of  the  best  sort  of  joke  to  be 
the  worst  sort  of  insult  if  it  is  not  taken  as  a  joke. 

The  English  and  the  American  types  of  humour  are  in 
one  way  directly  contrary.  The  most  American  sort  of 
fun  involves  a  soaring  imagination,  piling  one  house  on 
another  in  a  tower  like  that  of  a  sky-scraper.  The  most 
English  humour  consists  of  a  sort  of  bathos,  of  a  man 
returning  to  the  earth  his  mother  in  a  homely  fashion ;  as 
when  he  sits  down  suddenly  on  a  butter-slide.  English 
farce  describes  a  man  as  being  in  a  hole.  American  fan- 

158 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  159 

tasy,  in  its  more  aspiring  spirit,  describes  a  man  as  being 
up  a  tree.  The  former  is  to  be  found  in  the  cockney 
comic  songs  that  concern  themselves  with  hanging  out  the 
washing  or  coming  home  with  the  milk.  The  latter  is  to 
be  found  in  those  fantastic  yarns  about  machines  that  turn 
live  pigs  into  pig-skin  purses  or  burning  cities  that  serve  to 
hatch  an  egg.  But  it  will  be  inevitable,  when  the  two 
come  first  into  contact,  that  the  bathos  will  sound  like  vul 
garity  and  the  extravagance  will  sound  like  boasting. 

Suppose  an  American  soldier  said  to  an  English  soldier 
in  the  trenches,  'The  Kaiser  may  want  a  place  in  the  sun ; 
I  reckon  he  won't  have  a  place  in  the  solar  system  when 
we  begin  to  hustle/  The  English  soldier  will  very  probably 
form  the  impression  that  this  is  arrogance ;  an  impression 
based  on  the  extraordinary  assumption  that  the  American 
means  what  he  says.  The  American  has  merely  indulged 
in  a  little  art  for  art's  sake,  an  abstract  adventure  of  the 
imagination;  he  has  told  an  American  short  story.  But 
the  Englishman,  not  understanding  this,  will  think  the 
other  man  is  boasting,  and  reflecting  on  the  insufficiency 
of  the  English  effort.  The  English  soldier  is  very  likely 
to  say  something  like,  'Oh,  you'll  be  wanting  to  get  home 
to  your  old  woman  before  that,  and  asking  for  a  kipper 
with  your  tea.'  And  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  American 
will  be  offended  in  his  turn  at  having  his  arabesque  of 
abstract  beauty  answered  in  so  personal  a  fashion.  Being 
an  American,  he  will  probably  have  a  fine  and  chivalrous 
respect  for  his  wife ;  and  may  object  to  her  being  called  an 
old  woman.  Possibly  he  in  turn  may  be  under  the  ex 
traordinary  delusion  that  talking  of  the  old  woman  really 
means  that  the  woman  is  old.  Possibly  he  thinks  the 
mysterious  demand  for  a  kipper  carries  with  it  some 
charge  of  ill-treating  his  wife;  which  his  national  sense 


160  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  honour  swiftly  resents.  But  the  real  cross-purposes 
come  from  the  contrary  direction  of  the  two  exaggera 
tions,  the  American  making  life  more  wild  and  impossible 
than  it  is,  and  the  Englishman  making  it  more  flat  and 
farcical  than  it  is;  the  one  escaping  the  house  of  life  by  a 
skylight  and  the  other  by  a  trap-door. 

This  difficulty  of  different  humours  is  a  very  practical 
one  for  practical  people.  Most  of  those  who  profess  to 
remove  all  international  differences  are  not  practical 
people.  Most  of  the  phrases  offered  for  the  reconcilia 
tion  of  severally  patriotic  peoples  are  entirely  serious  and 
even  solemn  phrases.  But  human  conversation  is  not 
conducted  in  those  phrases.  The  normal  man  on  nine 
occasions  out  of  ten  is  rather  a  flippant  man.  And  the 
normal  man  is  almost  always  the  national  -man.  Patri 
otism  is  the  most  popular  of  all  virtues.  The  drier 
sort  of  democrats  who  despise  it  have  the  democracy  a- 
gainst  them  in  every  country  in  the  world.  Hence  their 
international  efforts  seldom  go  any  farther  than  to  effect 
an  international  reconciliation  of  all  internationalists. 
But  we  have  not  solved  the  normal  and  popular  problem 
until  we  have  an  international  reconciliation  of  all  nation 
alists. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  see  how  humour  can  be  translated 
at  all.  When  Sam  Weller  is  in  the  Fleet  Prison  and  Mrs. 
Weller  and  Mr.  Stiggins  sit  on  each  side  of  the  fireplace 
and  weep  and  groan  with  sympathy,  old  Mr.  Weller 
observes,  'Veil,  Samivel,  I  hope  you'll  find  your  spirits 
rose  by  this  'ere  wisit.'  I  have  never  looked  up  this  pas 
sage  in  the  popular  and  successful  French  version  of  Pick 
wick;  but  I  confess  I  am  curious  as  to  what  French  past- 
participle  conveys  the  precise  effect  of  the  word  'rose.' 
A  translator  has  not  only  to  give  the  right  translation  of 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  161 

the  right  word  but  the  right  translation  of  the  wrong 
word.  And  in  the  same  way  I  am  quite  prepared  to  sus 
pect  that  there  are  English  jokes  which  an  Englishman 
must  enjoy  in  his  own  rich 'and  romantic  solitude,  without 
asking  for  the  sympathy  of  an  American*  But  English 
men  are  generally  only  too  prone  to  claim  this  fine  percep 
tion,  without  seeing  that  the  fine  edge  of  it  cuts  both  ways. 
I  have  begun  this  chapter  on  the  note  of  national  humour, 
because  I  wish  to  make  it  quite  clear  that  I  realise  how 
easily  a  foreigner  may  take  something  seriously  that  is 
not  serious.  When  I  think  something  in  America  is  really 
foolish,  it  may  be  I  that  am  made  a  fool  of.  It  is  the 
first  duty  of  a  traveller  to  allow  for  this;  but  it  seems  to 
be  the  very  last  thing  that  occurs  to  some  travellers.  But 
when  I  seek  to  say  something  of  what  may  be  called  the 
fantastic  side  of  America,  I  allow  beforehand  that  some 
of  it  may  be  meant  to  be  fantastic.  And  indeed  it  is  very 
difficult  to  believe  that  some  of  it  is  meant  to  be  serious. 
But  whether  or  no  there  is  a  joke,  there  is  certainly  an 
inconsistency;  and  it  is  an  inconsistency  in  the  moral 
make-up  of  America  which  both  puzzles  and  amuses  me. 
The  danger  of  democracy  is  not  anarchy  but  convention. 
There  is  even  a  sort  of  double  meaning  in  the  word  'con 
vention';  for  it  is  also  used  for  the  most  informal  and 
popular  sort  of  parliament;  a  parliament  not  summoned  by 
any  king.  The  Americans  come  together  very  easily 
without  any  king;  but  their  coming  together  is  in  every 
sense  a  convention,  and  even  a  very  conventional  conven 
tion.  In  a  democracy  riot  is  rather  the  exception  and 
respectability  certainly  the  rule.  And  though  a  superficial 
sight-seer  should  hesitate  about  all  such  generalisations, 
and  certainly  should  allow  for  enormous  exceptions  to 
them,  he  does  receive  a  general  impression  of  unity  verg- 


1 62  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ing  on  uniformity.  Thus  Americans  all  dress  well ;  one 
might  almost  say  that  American  women  all  look  well; 
but  they  do  not,  as  compared  with  Europeans,  look  very 
different.  They  are  in  the  fashion ;  too  much  in  the  fash 
ion  even  to  be  conspicuously  fashionable.  Of  course 
there  are  patches,  both  Bohemian  and  Babylonian,  of 
which  this  is  not  true,  but  I  am  talking  of  the  general 
tone  of  a  whole  democracy.  I  have  said  there  is  more 
respectability  than  riot;  but  indeed  in  a  deeper  sense  the 
same  spirit  is  behind  both  riot  and  respectability.  It  is 
the  same  social  force  that  makes  it  possible  for  the  respect 
able  to  boycott  a  man  and  for  the  riotous  to  lynch  him. 
I  do  not  object  to  it  being  called  'the  herd  instinct/  so 
long  as  we  realise  that  it  is  a  metaphor  and  not  an  explana 
tion. 

Public  opinion  can  be  a  prairie  fire.  It  eats  up  every 
thing  that  opposes  it ;  and  there  is  the  grandeur  as  well  as 
the  grave  disadvantages  of  a  natural  catastrophe  in  that 
national  unity.  Pacifists  who  complained  in  England  of 
the  intolerance  of  patriotism  have  no  notion  of  what  pa 
triotism  can  be  like.  If  they  had  been  in  America,  after 
America  had  entered  the  war,  they  would  have  seen  some 
thing  which  they  would  have  always  perhaps  subcon 
sciously  dreaded,  and  would  then  have  beyond  all  their 
worse  dreams  detested ;  and  the  name  of  it  is  democracy. 
They  would  have  found  that  there  are  disadvantages  in 
birds  of  a  feather  flocking  together;  and  that  one  of  them 
follows  on  a  too  complacent  display  of  the  white  feather. 
The  truth  is  that  a  certain  flexible  sympathy  with  eccen 
trics  of  this  kind  is  rather  one  of  the  advantages  of  an 
aristocratic  tradition.  The  imprisonment  of  Mr.  Debs, 
the  American  Pacifist,  which  really  was  prolonged  and 
oppressive,  would  probably  have  been  shortened  in  Eng- 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  163 

land,  where  his  opinions  were  shared  by  aristocrats  like 
Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  and  Mr.  Ponsonby.  A  man  like 
Lord  Hugh  Cecil  could  be  moved  to  the  defence  of  con 
scientious  objectors,  partly  by  a  true  instinct  of  chivalry; 
but  partly  also  by  the  general  feeling  that  a  gentleman 
may  very  probably  have  aunts  and  uncles  who  are  quite 
as  mad.  He  takes  the  matter  personally,  in  the  sense  of 
being  able  to  imagine  the  psychology  of  the  persons.  But 
democracy  is  no  respecter  of  -persons.  It  is  no  respecter 
of  them,  either  in  the  bad  and  servile  or  in  the  good  and 
sympathetic  sense.  And  Debs  was  nothing  to  democracy. 
He  was  but  one  of  the  millions.  This  is  a  real  problem, 
or  question  in  the  balance,  touching  different  forms  of 
government;  which  is,  of  course,  quite  neglected  by  the 
idealists  who  merely  repeat  long  words.  There  was  dur 
ing  the  war  a  society  called  the  Union  of  Democratic 
Control,  which  would  have  been  instantly  destroyed  any 
where  democracy  had  any  control,  or  where  there  was  any 
union.  And  in  this  sense  the  United  States  have  most 
emphatically  got  a  union.  Nevertheless  I  think  there 
is  something  rather  more  subtle  than  this  simple  popular 
solidity  behind  the  assimilation  of  American  citizens  to 
each  other.  There  is  something  even  in  the  individual 
ideals  that  drives  towards  this  social  sympathy.  And 
it  is  here  that  we  have  to  remember  that  biological  fan 
cies  like  the  herd  instinct  are  only  figures  of  speech,  and 
cannot  really  cover  anything  human.  For  the  Ameri 
cans  are  in  some  ways  a  very  self-conscious  people.  To 
compare  their  social  enthusiasm  to  a  stampede  of  cattle 
is  to  ask  us  to  believe  in  a  bull  writing  a  diary  or  a  cow 
looking  in  a  looking-glass.  Intensely  sensitive  by  their 
very  vitality,  they  are  certainly  conscious  of  criticism 
and  not  merely  of  a  blind  and  brutal  appetite.  But  the 


164  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

peculiar  point  about  them  is  that  it  is  this  very  vividness  in 
the  self  that  often  produces  the  similarity.  It  may  be  that 
when  they  are  unconscious  they  are  like  bulls  and  cows. 
But  it  is  when  they  are  self-conscious  that  they  are  like 
each  other. 

Individualism  is  the  death  of  individuality.  It  is  so, 
if  only  because  it  is  an  'ism/  Many  Americans  become 
almost  impersonal  in  their  worship  of  personality. 
Where  their  natural  selves  might  differ,  their  ideal  selves 
tend  to  be  the  same.  Anybody  can  see  what  I  mean  in 
those  strong  self-conscious  photographs  of  American 
business  men  that  can  be  seen  in  any  American  magazine. 
Each  may  conceive  himself  to  be  a  solitary  Napoleon 
brooding  at  St.  Helena;  but  the  result  is  a  multitude  of 
Napoleons  brooding  all  over  the  place.  Each  of  them 
must  have  the  eyes  of  a  mesmerist;  but  the  most  weak- 
minded  person  cannot  be  mesmerised  by  more  than  one 
millionaire  at  a  time.  Each  of  the  millionaires  must 
thrust  forward  his  jaw,  offering  (if  I  may  say  so)  to  fight 
the  world  with  the  same  weapon  as  Samson.  Each  of 
them  must  accentuate  the  length  of  his  chin,  especially, 
of  course,  by  always  being  completely  clean-shaven.  It 
would  be  obviously  inconsistent  with  Personality  to  pre 
fer  to  wear  a  beard.  These  are  of  course  'fantastic  exam 
ples  on  the  fringe  of  American  life;  but  they  do  stand  for 
a  certain  assimilation,  not  through  brute  gregariousness, 
but  rather  through  isolated  dreaming.  And  though  it  is 
not  always  carried  so  far  as  this,  I  do  think  it  is  carried 
too  far.  There  is  not  quite  enough  unconsciousness  to 
produce  real  individuality.  There  is  a  sort  of  worship  of 
will-power  in  the  abstract,  so  that  people  are  actually 
thinking  about  how  they  can  will,  more  than  about  what 
they  want.  To  this  I  do  think  a  certain  corrective  could 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  165 

be  found  in  the  nature  of  English  eccentricity.  Every 
man  in  his  humour  is  most  interesting  when  he  is  uncon 
scious  of  his  humour ;  or  at  least  when  he  is  in  an  inter 
mediate  stage  between  humour  in  the  old  sense  of  oddity 
and  in  the  new  sense  of  irony.  Much  is  said  in  these  days 
against  negative  morality;  and  certainly  most  Americans 
would  show  a  positive  preference  for  positive  morality. 
The  virtues  they  venerate  collectively  are  very  active  vir 
tues;  cheerfulness  and  courage  and  vim,  otherwise  zip, 
also  pep  and  similar  things.  But  it  is  sometimes  forgot 
ten  that  negative  morality  is  freer  than  positive  morality. 
Negative  morality  is  a  net  of  a  larger  and  more  open  pat 
tern,  of  which  the  lines  or  cords  constrict  at  longer  inter 
vals.  A  man  like  Dr.  Johnson  could  grow  in  his  own  way 
to  his  own  stature  in  the  net  of  the  Ten  Commandments ; 
precisely  because  he  was  convinced  there  were  only  ten 
of  them.  He  was  not  compressed  into  the  mould  of  posi 
tive  beauty,  like  that  of  the  Apollo  Belvedere  or  the 
American  citizen. 

This  criticism  is  sometimes  true  even  of  the  American 
woman,  who  is  certainly  a  much  more  delightful  person 
than  the  mesmeric  millionaire  with  his  shaven  jaw.;  In 
terviewers  in  the  United  States  perpetually  asked  me  what 
I  thought  of  American  women,  and  I  confessed  a  distaste 
for  such  generalisations  which  I  have  not  managed  to  lose. 
The  Americans,  who  are  the  most  chivalrous  people  in  the 
world,  may  perhaps  understand  me ;  but  I  can  never  help 
feeling  that  there  is  something  polygamous  about  talking 
of  women  in  the  plural  at  all ;  something  unworthy  of  any 
American  except  a  Mormon.  Nevertheless,  I  think  the 
exaggeration  I  suggest  does  extend  in  a  less  degree  to 
American  women,  fascinating  as  they  are.  I  think  they 
too  tend  too  much  to  this  cult  of  impersonal  personality. 


1 66  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

It  is  a  description  easy  to  exaggerate  even  by  the  faintest 
emphasis;  for  all  these  things  are  subtle  and  subject  to 
striking  individual  exceptions.  To  complain  of  people 
for  being  brave  and  bright  and  kind  and  intelligent  may 
not  unreasonably  appear  unreasonable.  And  yet  there  is 
something  in  the  background  that  can  only  be  expressed  by 
a  symbol,  something  that  is  not  shallowness  but  a  neglect 
of  the  subconsciousness  and  the  vaguer  and  slower  im 
pulses  ;  something  that  can  be  missed  amid  all  that  laughter 
and  light,  under  those  starry  candelabra  of  the  ideals  of 
the  happy  virtues.  Sometimes  it  came  over  me,  in  a 
wordless  wave,  that  I  should  like  to  see  a  sulky  woman. 
How  she  would  walk  in  beauty  like  the  night,  and  reveal 
more  silent  spaces  full  of  older  stars !  These  things  can 
not  be  conveyed  in  their  delicate  proportion  even  in  the 
most  large  and  allusive  terms.  But  the  same  thing  was 
in  the  mind  of  a  white-bearded  old  man  I  met  in  New 
York,  an  Irish  exile  and  a  wonderful  talker,  who  stared 
up  at  the  tower  of  gilded  galleries  of  the  great  hotel,  and 
said  with  that  spontaneous  movement  of  style  which  is 
hardly  heard  except  from  Irish  talkers :  'And  I  have  been 
in  a  village  in  the  mountains  where  the  people  could 
hardly  read  or  write ;  but  all  the  men  were  like  soldiers, 
and  all  the  women  had  pride/ 

It  sounds  like  a  poem  about  an  earthly  paradise  to  say 
that  in  this  land  the  old  women  can  be  more  beautiful 
than  the  young.  Indeed,  I  think  Walt  Whitman,  the 
national  poet,  has  a  line  somewhere  almost  precisely  to 
that  effect.  It  sounds  like  a  parody  upon  Utopia,  and 
the  image  of  the  lion  lying  down  with  the  lamb,  to  say 
it  is  a  place  where  a  man  might  almost  fall  in  love  with 
his  mother-in-law.  But  there  is  nothing  in  which  the 
finer  side  of  American  gravity  and  good  feeling  does  more 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  167 

nonourably  exhibit  itself  than  in  a  certain  atmosphere 
around  the  older  women.  It  is  not  a  cant  phrase  to  say 
that  they  grow  old  gracefully;  for  they  do  really  grow 
old.  In  this  the  national  optimism  really  has  in  it  the 
national  courage.  The  old  women  do  not  dress  like 
young  women;  they  only  dress  better.  There  is  another 
side  to*  this  feminine  dignity  in  the  old,  sometimes  a  little 
lost  in  the  young,  with  which  I  shall  deal  presently.  The 
point  for  the  moment  is  that  even  Whitman's  truly  poetic 
vision  of  the  beautiful  old  women  suffers  a  little  from 
that  bewildering  multiplicity  and  recurrence  that  is  indeed 
the  whole  theme  of  Whitman.  It  is  like  the  green  eter 
nity  of  Leaves  of  Grass.  When  I  think  of  the  eccentric 
spinsters  and  incorrigible  grandmothers  of  my  own 
country,  I  cannot  imagine  that  any  one  of  them  could 
possibly  be  mistaken  for  another,  even  at  a  glance;  and 
in  comparison  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  travelling  in  an 
earthly  paradise  of  more  decorative  harmonies;  and  I 
remember  only  a  vast  cloud  of  grey  and  pink  as  of  the 
plumage  of  cherubim  in  an  old  picture.  But  on  second 
thoughts,  I  think  this  may  be  only  the  inevitable  effect 
of  visiting  any  country  in  a  swift  and  superficial  fashion ; 
and  that  the  grey  and  pink  cloud  is  possibly  an  illusion, 
like  the  spinning  prairies  scattered  by  the  wheel  of  the 
train. 

Anyhow  there  is  enough  of  this  equality,  and  of  a 
certain  social  unity  favourable  to  sanity,  to  make  the 
next  point  about  America  very  much  of  a  puzzle.  It 
seems  to  me  a  very  real  problem,  to  which  I  have  never 
seen  an  answer  even  such  as  I  shall  attempt  here,  why  a 
democracy  should  produce  fads ;  and  why,  where  there  is 
so  genuine  a  sense  of  human  dignity,  there  should  be  so 
much  of  an  impossible  petty  tyranny.  I  am  not  refer- 


•i  68  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ring  solely  or  even  specially  to  Prohibition,  which  I  dis 
cuss  elsewhere.  Prohibition  is  at  least  a  superstition, 
and  therefore  next  door  to  a  religion;  it  has  some  imag 
inable  connection  with  moral  questions,  as  have  slavery 
or  human  sacrifice.  But  those  who  ask  us  to  model  our 
selves  on  the  States  which  punish  the  sin  of  drink  forget 
that  there  are  States  which  punish  the  equally  shameless 
sin  of  smoking  a  cigarette  in  the  open  air.  The  same 
American  atmosphere  that  permits  Prohibition  permits 
of  people  being  punished  for  kissing  each  other.  In 
other  words,  there  are  States  psychologically  capable  of 
making  a  man  a  convict  for  wearing  a  blue  neck-tie  or 
having  a  green  front-door,  or  anything  else  that  anybody 
chooses  to  fancy.  There  is  an  American  atmosphere  in 
which  people  may  some  day  be  shot  for  shaking  hands,  or 
hanged  for  writing  a  post-card. 

As  for  the  sort  of  thing  to  which  I  refer,  the  American 
newspapers  are  full  of  it  and  there  is  no  name  for  it  but 
mere  madness.  Indeed  it  is  not  only  mad,  but  it  calls 
itself  mad.  To  mention  but.  one  example  out  of  many, 
it  was  actually  boasted  that  some  lunatics  were  teaching 
children  to  take  care  of  their  health.  And  it  was 
proudly  added  that  the  children  were  'health-mad.'  That 
it  is  not  exactly  the  object  of  all  mental  hygiene  to  make 
people  mad  did  not  occur  to  them ;  and  they  may  still  be 
engaged  in  their  earnest  labours  to  teach  babies  to  be 
valetudinarians  and  hypochondriacs  in  order  to  make 
them  healthy.  In  such  cases,  we  may  say  that  the  mod 
ern  world  is  too  ridiculous  to-  be  ridiculed.  You  cannot 
caricature  a  caricature.  Imagine  what  a  satirist  of 
saner  days  would  have  made  of  the  daily  life  of  a  child 
of  six,  who  was  actually  admitted  to  be  mad  on  the 
subject  of  his  own  health.  These  are  not  days  in  which 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  169 

that  great  extravaganza  could  be  written ;  but  I  dimly  see 
some  of  its  episodes  like  uncompleted  dreams.  I  see  the 
child  pausing  in  the  middle  of  a  cart-wheel,  or  when  he 
has  performed  three-quarters  af  a  cart-wheel,  and  con 
sulting  a  little  note-book  about  the  amount  of  exercise 
per  diem.  I  see  him  pausing  half-way  up  a  tree,  or 
when  he  has  climbed  exactly  one-third  of  a  tree ;  and  then 
producing  a  clinical  thermometer  to  take  his  own  tem 
perature.  But  what  would  be  the  good  of  imaginative 
logic  to  prove  the  madness  of  such  people,  when  they 
themselves  praise  it  for  being  mad  ? 

There  is  also  the  cult  of  the  Infant  Phenomenon,  of 
which  Dickens  made  fun  and  of  which  educationalists 
make  fusses.  When  I  was  in  America  another  news 
paper  produced  a  marvellous  child  o<f  six  who  had  the 
intellect  of  a  child  of  twelve.  The  only  test  given,  and 
apparently  one  on  which  the  experiment  turned,  was  that 
she  could  be  made  to  understand  and  even  to  employ  the 
word  'annihilate/  When  asked  to  say  something  prov 
ing  this,  the  happy  infant  offered  the  polished  aphorism, 
'When  common  sense  comes  in,  superstition  is  annihi 
lated.'  In  reply  to  which,  by  way  of  showing  that  I 
also  am  as  intelligent  as  a  child  of  twelve,  and  there  is  no 
arrested  development  about  me,  I  will  say  in  the  same 
elegant  diction,  When  psychological  education  comes  in, 
common  sense  is  annihilated.  Everybody  seems  to  be 
sitting  round  this  child  in  an  adoring  fashion.  It  did  not 
seem  to  occur  to  anybody  that  we  do  not  particularly 
want  even  a  child  of  twelve  to  talk  about  annihilating 
superstition;  that  we  do  not  want  a  child  of  six  to  talk 
like  a  child  of  twelve,  or  a  child  of  twelve  to  talk  like  a 
man  of  fifty,  or  even  a  man  of  fifty  to  talk  like  a  fool. 
And  on  the  principle  of  hoping  that  a  little  girl  of  six 


170  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

will  have  a  massive  and  mature  brain  there  is  every 
reason  for  hoping  that  a  little  boy  of  six  will  grow  a 
magnificent  and  bushy  beard. 

Now  there  is  any  amount  of  this  nonsense  cropping  up 
among  American  cranks.  Anybody  may  propose  to  es 
tablish  coercive  Eugenics ;  or  enforce  psycho-analysis — 
that  is,  enforce  confession  without  absolution.  And  I 
confess  I  cannot  connect  this  feature  with  the  genuine 
democratic  spirit  of  the  mass.  I  can  only  suggest,  in 
concluding  this  chapter,  two  possible  causes  rather 
peculiar  to  America,  which  may  have  made  this  great 
democracy  so  unlike  all  other  democracies,  and  in  this  so 
manifestly  hostile  to  the  whole  democratic  idea. 

The  first  historical  cause  is  Puritanism;  but  not  Pur 
itanism  merely  in  the  sense  of  Prohibitionisrn.  The 
truth  is  that  prohibitions  might  have  done  far  less  harm 
as  prohibitions,  if  a  vague  association  had  not  arisen,  on 
some  dark  day  of  human  unreason,  between  prohibition 
and  progress.  And  it  was  the  progress  that  did  the 
harm,  not  the  prohibition.  Men  can  enjoy  life  under 
considerable  limitations,  if  they  can  be  sure  of  their 
limited  enjoyments;  but  under  Progressive  Puritanism 
we  can  never  be  sure  of  anything.  The  curse  of  it  is  not 
limitation;  it  is  unlimited  limitation.  The  evil  is  not  in 
the  restriction;  but  in  the  fact  that  nothing  can  ever  re 
strict  the  restriction.  The  prohibitions  are  bound  to 
progress  point  by  point;  more  and  more  human  rights 
and  pleasures  must  of  necessity  be  taken  away ;  for  it  is 
of  the  nature  of  this  futurism  that  the  latest  fad  is  the 
faith  of  the  future,  and  the  most  fantastic  fad  inevitably 
makes  the  pace.  Thus  the  worst  thing  in  the  seventeenth- 
century  aberration  was  not  so  much  Puritanism  as  secta 
rianism.  It  searched  for  truth  not  by  synthesis  but  by 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  171 

subdivision,  It  not  only  broke  religion  into  small  pieces, 
but  it  was  bound  to  choose  the  smallest  piece*  There  is 
in  America,  I  believe,  a  large  religious  body  that  has  felt 
it  right  to  separate  itself  from  Christendom,  because  it 
cannot  believe  in  the  morality  of  wearing  buttons.  I  do 
not  know  how  the  schism  arose ;  but  it  is  easy  to  suppose, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  there  had  originally  existed 
some  Puritan  body  which  condemned  the  frivolity  of 
ribbons  though  not  of  buttons,  I  was  going  to  say  of 
badges  but  not  buttons;  but  on  reflection  I  cannot  bring 
myself  to  believe  that  any  American,  however  insane, 
would  object  to  wearing  badges.  But  the  point  is  that 
as  the  holy  spirit  of  progressive  prophesy  rested  on  the 
first  sect  because  it  had  invented  a  new  objection  to 
ribbons,  so  that  holy  spirit  would  then  pass  from  it  to  the 
new  sect  who  invented  a  further  objection  to  buttons. 
And  from  them  it  must  inevitably  pass  to  any  rebel 
among  them  who  shall  choose  to  rise  and  say  that  he  dis 
approves  of  trousers  because  of  the  existence  of  trouser- 
buttons.  Each  secession  in  turn  must  be  right  because 
it  is  recent,  and  progress  must  progress  by  growing 
smaller  and  smaller.  That  is  the  progressive  theory,  the 
legacy  of  seventeenth-century  sectarianism,  the  dogma 
implied  in  much  modern  politics,  and  the  evident  enemy 
of  democracy.  Democracy  is  reproached  with  saying 
that  the  majority  is  always  right.  But  progress  says  that 
the  minority  is  always  right.  Progressives  are  prophets; 
and  fortunately  not  all  the  people  are  prophets.  Thus  in 
the  atmosphere  of  this  slowly  dying  sectarianism  anybody 
who  chooses  to  prophesy  and  prohibit  can  tyrannise  over 
the  people.  If  he  chooses  to  say  that  drinking  is  always 
wrong,  or  that  kissing  is  always  wrong,  or  that  wearing 
buttons  is  always  wrong,  people  are  afraid  to  contradict 


172  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

him  for  fear  they  should  be  contradicting  their  own 
great-grandchild.  For  their  superstition  is  an  inversion 
of  the  ancestor- worship  of  China;  and  instead  of  vainly 
appealing  to  something  that  is  dead,  they  appeal  to  some 
thing  that  may  never  be  born. 

There  is  another  cause  of  this  strange  servile  disease 
in  American  democracy.  It  is  to  be  found  in  American 
feminism,  and  feminist  America  is  an  entirely  different 
thing  from  feminine  America.  I  should  say  that  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  American  girls  laugh  at  their 
female  politicians  at  least  as  much  as  the  majority  of 
American  men  despise  their  male  politicians.  But 
though  the  aggressive  feminists  are  a  minority,  they  are 
in  this  atmosphere  which  I  have  tried  to  analyse;  the  at 
mosphere  in  which  there  is  a  sort  of  sanctity  about  the 
minority.  And  it  is  this  superstition  of  seriousness  that 
constitutes  the  most  solid  obstacle  and  exception  to  the 
general  and  almost  conventional  pressure  of  public  opin 
ion.  When  a  fad  is  frankly  felt  to  be  anti-national,  as 
was  Abolitionism  before  the  Civil  War,  or  Pro-German 
ism  in  the  Great  War,  or  the  suggestion  of  radical  ad 
mixture  in  the  South  at  all  times,  then  the  fad  meets  far 
less  mercy  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world ;  it  is  snowed 
under  and  swept  away.  But  when  it  does  not  thus 
directly  challenge  patriotism  or  popular  ideas,  a  curious 
halo  of  hopeful  solemnity  surrounds  it,  merely  because  it 
is  a  fad,  but  above  all  if  it  is  a  feminine  fad.  The 
earnest  lady-reformer  who  really  utters  a  warning 
against  the  social  evil  of  beer  or  buttons  is  seen  to  be 
walking  clothed  in  light,  like  a  prophetess.  Perhaps  it  is 
something  of  the  holy  aureole  which  the  East  sees 
shining  around  an  idiot. 

But   I   think  there  is  another  explanation,    feminine 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  173 

rather  than  feminist,  and  proceeding  from  normal 
women  and  not  from  abnormal  idiots.  It  is  something 
that  involves  an  old  controversy,  but  one  upon  which  I 
have  not,  like  so  many  politicians,  changed  my  opinion. 
It  concerns  the  particular  fashion  in  which  women  tend 
to  regard,  or  rather  to  disregard,  the  formal  and  legal 
rights  of  the  citizen.  In  so  far  as  this  is  a  bias,  it  is  a 
bias  in  the  directly  opposite  direction  from  that  now 
lightly  alleged.  There  is  a  sort  of  underbred  history 
going  about,  according  to  which  women  in  the  past  have 
always  been  in  the  position  of  slaves.  It  is  much  more 
to  the  point  to  note  that  women  have  always  been  in  the 
position  of  despots.  They  have  been  despotic,  because 
they  ruled  in  an  area  where  they  had  too  much  common 
sense  to  attempt  to  be  constitutional.  You  cannot  grant 
a  constitution  to  a  nursery;  nor  can  babies  assemble  like 
barons  and  extort  a  Great  Charter.  Tommy  cannot 
plead  a  Habeas  Corpus  against  going  to  bed;  and  an  in 
fant  cannot  be  tried  by  twelve  other  infants  before  he  is 
put  in  the  corner.  And  as  there  can  be  no  laws  or  lib 
erties  in  a  nursery,  the  extension  of  feminism  means  that 
there  shall  be  no  more  laws  or  liberties  in  a  state  than 
there  are  in  a  nursery.  The  woman  does  not  really  re 
gard  men  as  citizens  but  as  children.  She  may,  if  she 
is  a  humanitarian,  love  all  mankind ;  but  she  does  not  re 
spect  it.  Still  less  does  she  respect  its  votes.  Now  a 
man  must  be  very  blind  nowadays  not  to  see  that  there  is 
a  danger  of  a  sort  of  amateur  science  or  pseudo-science 
being  made  the  excuse  for  every  trick  of  tyranny  and 
interference.  Anybody  who  is  not  an  anarchist  agrees 
with  having  a  policeman  at  the  corner  of  the  street;  but 
the  danger  at  present  is  that  of  finding  the  policeman  half 
way  down  the  chimney  or  even  under  the  bed.  In  other 


174  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

words,  it  is  a  danger  of  turning  the  policeman  into  a  sort 
of  benevolent  burglar.  Against  this  protests  are  already 
being  made,  and  will  increasingly  be  made,  if  men  retain 
any  instinct  of  independence  or  dignity  at  all.  But  to 
complain  of  the  woman  interfering  in  the  home  will 
always  sound  like  the  complaining  of  the  oyster  intruding 
into  the  oyster-shell.  To  object  that  she  has  too  much 
power  over  education  will  seem  like  objecting  to  a  hen 
having  too  much  to  do  with  eggs.  She  has  already  been 
given  an  almost  irresponsible  power  over  a  limited  region 
in  these  things ;  and  if  that  power  is  made  infinite  it  will 
be  even  more  irresponsible,  If  she  adds  to  her  own 
power  in  the  family  all  these  alien  fads  external  to  the 
family,  her  power  will  not  only  be  irresponsible  but 
insane.  She  will  be  something  which  may  well  be  called 
a  nightmare  of  the  nursery;  a  mad  mother.  But  the 
point  is  that  she  will  be  mad  about  other  nurseries  as 
well  as  her  own,  or  possibly  instead  of  her  own.  The 
results  will  be  interesting;  but  at  least  it  is  certain  that 
under  this  softening  influence  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  will  most  assuredly  perish 
from  the  earth. 

But  there  is  always  another  possibility.  Hints  of  it 
may  be  noted  here  and  there  like  muffled  gongs  of  doom. 
The  other  day  some  people  preaching  some  low  trick  or 
other,  for  running  away  from  the  glory  of  mother 
hood,  were  suddenly  silenced  in  New  York ;  by  a  voice  of 
deep  and  democratic  volume.  The  prigs  who  potter 
about  the  great  plains  are  pygmies  dancing  round  a  sleep 
ing  giant.  That  which  sleeps,  so  far  as  they  are  con 
cerned,  is  the  huge  power  of  human  unanimity  and  intol 
erance  in  the  soul  of  America.  At  present  the  masses 
in  the  Middle  West  are  indifferent  to  such  fancies  or 


FADS  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  175 

faintly  attracted  by  them,  as  fashions  of  culture  from  the 
•great  cities.  But  any  day  it  may  not  be  so ;  some  lunatic 
may  cut  across  their  economic  rights  or  their  strange  and 
buried  religion ;  and  then  he  will  see  something.  He  will 
find  himself  running  like  a  nigger  who  has  wronged  a 
white  woman,  or  a  man  who  has  set  the  prairie  on  fire. 
He  will  see  something  which  the  politicians  fan  in  its 
sleep  and  flatter  with  the  name  of  the  people,  which  many 
reactionaries  have  cursed  with  the  name  of  the  mob,  but 
which  in  any  case  has  had  under  its  feet  the  crowns  of 
many  kings.  It  was  said  that  the  voice  of  the  people  is 
the  voice  of  God;  and  this  at  least  is  certain,  that  it  can 
be  the  voice  of  God  to  the  wicked.  And  the  last  antics 
of  their  arrogance  shall  stiffen  before  something  enor 
mous,  such  as  towers  in  the  last  words  that  Job  heard  out 
of  the  whirlwind ;  and  a  voice  they  never  knew  shall  tell 
them  that  his  name  is  Leviathan,  and  he  is  lord  over  all 
the  children  of  pride. 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY   AMERICAN 

WHEN  I  was  in  America  I  had  the  feeling 
that  it  was  far  more  foreign  than  France 
or  even  than  Ireland.     And  by  foreign  I 
mean  fascinating  rather  than  repulsive.     I  mean  that  ele 
ment  of  strangeness  which  marks  the  frontier  of  any 
fairyland,  or  gives  to  the  traveller  himself  the  almost 
eerie  title  of  the  stranger.     And  I  saw  there  more  clearly 
than  in  countries  counted  as  more  remote  from  us,  in 
race  or  religion,  a  paradox  that  is  one  of  the  great  truths 
of  travel. 

We  have  never  even  begun  to  understand  a  people  until 
we  have  found  something  that  we  do  not  understand. 
So  long  as  we  find  the  character  easy  to  read,  we  are  read 
ing  into  it  our  own  character.  If  when  we  see  an  event 
we  can  promptly  provide  an  explanation,  we  may  be 
pretty  certain  that  we  had  ourselves  prepared  the  explan 
ation  before  we  saw  the  event.  It  follows  from  this 
that  the  best  picture  of  a  foreign  people  can  probably  be 
found  in  a  puzzle  picture.  If  we  can  find  an  event  of 
which  the  meaning  is  really  dark  to  us,  it  will  probably 
throw  some  light  on  the  truth.  I  will  therefore  take 
from  my  American  experiences  one  isolated  incident, 
which  certainly  could  not  have  happened  in  any  other 
country  I  have  ever  clapped  eyes  on.  I  have  really  no 
notion  of  what  it  meant.  I  have  heard  even  from 

Americans    about    five    different   conjectures   about    its 

176 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     177 

meaning.  But  though  I  do  not  understand  it,  I  do  sin 
cerely  believe  that  if  I  did  understand  it,  I  should  under 
stand  America. 

It  happened  in  the  city  of  Oklahoma,  which  would  re 
quire  a  book  to  itself,  even  considered  as  a  background. 
The  State  of  Oklahoma  is  a  district  in  the  south-west 
recently  reclaimed  from  the  Red  Indian  territory.  What 
many,  quite  incorrectly,  imagine  about  all  America  is 
really  true  of  Oklahoma.  It  is  proud  of  having  no  his 
tory.  It  is  glowing  with  the  sense  of  having  a  g*reat  fu 
ture — and  nothing  else.  People  are  just  as  likely  to  boast 
of  an  old  building  in  Nashville  as  in  Norwich;  people  are 
just  as  proud  of  old  families  in  Boston  as  in  Bath.  But 
in  Oklahoma  the  citizens  do  point  out  a  colossal  struc 
ture,  arrogantly  affirming  that  it  wasn't  there  last  week. 
It  was  against  the  colours  of  this  crude  stage  scenery,  as 
of  a  pantomime  city  of  pasteboard,  that  the  fantastic 
figure  appeared  which  still  haunts  me  like  a  walking  note 
of  interrogation.  I  was  strolling  down  the  main  street 
of  the  city,  and  looking  in  at  a  paper-stall  vivid  with  the 
news  of  crime,  when  a  stranger  addressed  me;  and  asked 
me,  quite  politely  but  with  a  curious  air  of  having  author 
ity  to  put  the  question,  what  I  was  doing  in  that  city. 

He  was  a  lean  brown  man,  having  rather  the  look  of  a 
shabby  tropical  traveller,  with  a  grey  moustache  and  a 
lively  and  alert  eye.  But  the  most  singular  thing  about 
him  was  that  the  front  of  his  coat  was  covered  with  a 
multitude  of  shining  metallic  emblems  made  m  the  shape 
of  stars  and  crescents.  I  was  well  accustomed  by  this 
time  to  Americans  adorning  the  lapels  of  their  coats  with 
little  symbols  of  various  societies;  it  is  a  part  of  the 
American  passion  for  the  ritual  of  comradship.  There 


178  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

is  nothing  that  an  American  likes  so  much  as  to  have  a 
secret  society  and  to  make  no  secret  of  it.  But  in  this 
case,  if  I  may  put  it  so,  the  rash  of  symbolism  seemed  to 
have  broken  out  all  over  the  man,  in  a  fashion  that  indi 
cated  that  the  fever  was  far  advanced.  Of  this  minor 
mystery,  however,  his  first  few  sentences  offered  a  pro 
visional  explanation.  In  answer  to  his  question,  touch 
ing  my  business  in  Oklahoma,  I  replied  with  restraint 
that  I  was  lecturing.  To  which  he  replied  without  re 
straint,  but  rather  with  an  expansive  and  radiant  pride, 
'I  also  am  lecturing.  I  am  lecturing  on  astronomy/ 

So  far  a  certain  wild  rationality  seemed  to  light  up  the 
affair.  I  knew  it  was  unusual,  in  my  own  country,  for 
the  Astronomer  Royal  to  walk  down  the  Strand  with 
his  coat  plastered  all  over  with  the  Solar  System.  In 
deed,  it  was  unusual  for  any  English  astronomical  lec 
turer  to  advertise  the  subject  of  his  lectures  in  this  fash 
ion.  But  though  it  would  be  unusual,  it  would  not  nec 
essarily  be  unreasonable.  In  fact,  I  think  it  might  add 
to  the  colour  and  variety  of  life,  if  specialists  did  adopt 
this  sort  of  scientific  heraldry.  I  should  like  to  be  able 
to  recognise  an  entomologist  at  sight  by  the  decorative 
spiders  and  cockroaches  crawling  all  over  his  coat  and 
waistcoat.  I  should  like  to  see  a  conchologist  in  a  simple 
costume  of  shells.  An  osteopath,  I  suppose,  would  be 
agreeably  painted  so  as  to  resemble  a  skeleton,  while  a 
botanist  would  enliven  the  street  with  the  appearance  of  a 
Jack-in-the-Green,  So  while  I  regarded  the  astronomi 
cal  lecturer  in  the  astronomical  coat  as  a  figure  dis 
tinguishable,  by  a  high  degree  of  differentiation,  from 
the  artless  astronomers  of  my  island  home  (enough 
their  simple  loveliness  for  me)  I  saw  in  him  nothing 
illogical,  but  rather  an  imaginative  extreme  of  logic. 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     179 

And  then  came  another  turn  of  the  wheel  of  topsy-turvy- 
dom,  and  all  the  logic  was  scattered  to  the  wind. 

Expanding  his  starry  bosom  and  standing  astraddle, 
with  the  air  of  one  who  owned  the  street,  the  strange  be 
ing  continued,  'Yes,  I  am  lecturing  on  astronomy,  anthro 
pology,  archaeology,  palaeontology,  embryology,  escha- 
tology,'  and  so  on  in  a  thunderous  roll  of  theoretical 
sciences  apparently  beyond  the  scope  of  any  single  uni 
versity,  let  alone  any  single  professor,  Having  thus  in 
troduced  himself,  however,  he  got  to  business.  He 
apologised  with  true  American  courtesy  for  having  ques 
tioned  me  at  all,  and  excused  it  on  the  ground  of  his  own 
exacting  responsibilities.  I  imagined  him  to  mean  the 
responsibility  of  simultaneously  occupying  the  chairs 
of  all  the  faculties  already  mentioned,  But  these  appar 
ently  were  trifles  to  him,  and  something  far  more  serious 
was  clouding  his  bfow. 

'I  feel  it  to  be  my  duty/  he  said,  'to  acquaint  myself 
with  any  stranger  visiting  this  city;  and  it  is  an  addi 
tional  pleasure  to  welcome  here  a  member  of  the  Upper 
Ten/  I  assured  him  earnestly  that  I  knew  nothing  about 
the  Upper  Ten,  except  that  I  did  not  belong  to  them;  I 
felt,  not  without  alarm,  that  the  Upper  Ten  might  be  an 
other  secret  society.  He  waved  my  abnegation  aside 
and  continued,  'I  have  a  great  responsibility  in  watching 
over  this  city.  My  friend  the  mayor  and  I  have  a  great 
responsibility/  And  then  an  extraordinary  thing  hap 
pened.  Suddenly  diving  his  hand  into  his  breast-pocket, 
he  flashed  something  before  my  eyes  like  a  hand-mirror ; 
something  which  disappeared  again  almost  as  soon  as  it 
appeared.  In  that  flash  I  could  only  see  that  it  was  some 
sort  of  polished  metal  plate,  with  some  letters  engraved 
on  it  like  a  monogram,  But  the  reward  of  a  studious 


i8o  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

and  virtuous  life,  which  has  been  spent  chiefly  in  the 
reading  of  American  detective  stories,  shone  forth  for 
me  in  that  hour  of  trial;  I  received  at  last  the  prize  of  a 
profound  scholarship  in  the  matter  of  imaginary  murders 
in  tenth-rate  magazines.  I  remembered  who  it  was  who 
in  the  Yankee  detective  yarn  flashes  before  the  eyes  of 
Slim  Jim  or  the  Lone  Hand  Crook  a  badge  of  metal 
sometimes  called  a  shield.  Assuming  all  the  desperate 
composure  of  Slim  Jim  himself,  I  replied,  'You  mean 
you  are  connected  with  the  police  authorities  here,  don't 
you?  Well,  if  I  commit  a  murder  here,  I'll  let  you 
know/  Whereupon  that  astonishing  man  waved  a  hand 
in  deprecation,  bowed  in  farewell  with  the  grace  of  a 
dancing  master;  and  said,  'Oh,  those  are  not  things  we 
expect  from  members  of  the  Upper  Ten.' 

Then  that  moving  constellation  moved  away,  disap 
pearing  in  the  dark  tides  of  humanity,  as  the  vision 
passed  away  down  the  dark  tides  from  Sir  Galahad  and, 
starlike,  mingled  with  the  stars. 

That  is  the  problem  I  would  put  to  all  Americans,  and 
to  all  who  claim  to  understand  America.  Who  and  what 
was  that  man?  Was  he  an  astronomer?  Was  he  a  de 
tective?  Was  he  a  wandering  lunatic?  If  he  was  a 
lunatic  who  thought  he  was  an  astronomer,  why  did  he 
have  a  badge  to  prove  he  was  a  detective?  If  he  was  a 
detective  pretending  to  be  an  astronomer,  why  did  he  tell 
a  total  stranger  that  he  was  a  detective  two  minutes  after 
saying  he  was  an  astronomer?  If  he  wished  to  watch 
over  the  city  in  a  quiet  and  unobtrusive  fashion,  why  did 
he  blazon  himself  all  over  with  all  the  stars  of  the  sky,  and 
profess  to  give  public  lectures  on  all  the  subjects  of  the 
world?  Every  wise  and  well-conducted  student  of 
murder  stories  is  acquainted  with  the  notion  of  a  police- 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     181 

man  in  plain  clothes.  But  nobody  could  possibly  say 
that  this  gentleman  was  in  plain  clothes.  Why  not  wear 
his  uniform,  if  he  was  resolved  to  show  every  stranger 
in  the  street  his  badge  ?  Perhaps  after  all  he  had  no  uni 
form;  for  these  lands  were  but  recently  a  wild  frontier 
rudely  ruled  by  vigilance  committees.  Some  Americans 
suggested  to  me  that  he  was  the  Sheriff;  the  regular 
hard-riding,  free-shooting  Sheriff  of  Bret  Harte  and  my 
boyhood's  dreams.  Others  suggested  that  he  was  an 
agent  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  that  great  nameless  revolu 
tion  of  the  revival  of  which  there  were  rumours  at  the 
time;  and  that  the  symbol  he  exhibited  was  theirs.  But 
whether  he  was  a  sheriff  acting  for  the  law,  or  a  con 
spirator  against  the  law,  or  a  lunatic  entirely  outside  the 
law,  I  agree  with  the  former  conjectures  upon  one  point. 
I  am  perfectly  certain  he  had  something  else  in  his  pocket 
besides  a  badge.  And  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  under 
certain  circumstances  he  would  have  handled  it  instantly, 
and  shot  me  dead  between  the  gay  bookstall  and  the 
crowded  trams,  And  that  is  the  last  touch  to  the  com 
plexity;  for  though  in  that  country  it  often  seems  that  the 
law  is  made  by  a  lunatic  you  never  know  when  the  lunatic 
may  not  shoot  you  for  keeping  it.  Only  in  the  presence 
of  that  citizen  of  Oklahoma  I  feel  I  am  confronted  with 
the  fullness  and  depth  of  the  mystery  of  America.  Be 
cause  I  understand  nothing,  I  recognise  the  thing  that  we 
call  a  nation;  and  I  salute  the  flag. \ 

But  even  in  connection  with  this  mysterious  figure  there 
is  a  moral  which  affords  another  reason  for  mentioning 
him.  Whether  he  was  a  sheriff  or  an  outlaw,  there  was 
certainly  something  about  him  that  suggested  the  adven 
turous  violence  of  the  old  border  life  of  America;  and 
whether  he  was  connected  with  the  police  or  no,  there 


182  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

was  certainly  violence  enough  in  his  environment  to  sat 
isfy  the  most  ardent  policeman.  The  posters  in  the 
paper-shop  were  placarded  with  the  verdict  in  the  Hamon 
trial ;  a  cause  celebre  which  reached  its  crisis  in  Oklahoma 
while  I  was  there,  Senator  Hamon  had  been  shot  by  a 
girl  whom  he  had  wronged)  and  his  widow  demanded 
justice,  or  what  might  fairly  be  called  vengeance.  There 
was  very  great  excitement  culminating  in  the  girl's  ac 
quittal.  Nor  did  the  Hamon  case  appear  to  be  entirely 
exceptional  in  that  breezy  borderland.  The  moment  the 
town  had  received  the  news  that  Clara  Smith  was  free, 
newsboys  rushed  down  the  street  shouting,  'Double  stab 
bing  outrage  near  Oklahoma/  or  'Banker's  throat  cut  on 
Main  Street/  and  otherwise  resuming  their  regular  mode 
of  life.  It  seemed  as  much  as  to  say,  'Do  not  imagine  that 
pur  local  energies  are  exhausted  in  shooting  a  Senator/ 
or  'Come,  now,  the  world  is  young,  even  if  Clara  Smith 
is  acquitted,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  Oklahoma  is  not  yet 
cold/ 

But  my  particular  reason  for  mentioning  the  matter 
is  this.  Despite  my  friend's  mystical  remarks  about 
the  Upper  Ten,  he  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  something 
that  was  at  least  the  very  reverse  of  a  respect  for  persons. 
Indeed,  there  was  something  in  the  very  crudity  of  his 
social  compliment  that  smacked,  strangely  enough,  of 
that  egalitarian  Soil.  In  a  vaguely  aristocratic  country 
like  England,  people  would  never  dream  of  telling  a  total 
stranger  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Upper  Ten.  For 
one  thing,  they  would  be  afraid  that  he  might  be.  Real 
Snobbishness  is  never  vulgar ;  for  it  is  intended  to  please 
the  refined.  Nobody  licks  the  boots  of  a  duke,  if  only 
because  the  duke  does  not  like  his  boots  cleaned  in  that 
way.  Nobody  embraces  the  knees  of  a  marquis,  because 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     183 

it  would  embarrass  that  nobleman.  And  nobody  tells 
him  he  is  a  member  of  the  Upper  Ten,  because  every 
body  is  expected  to  know  it?  But  there  is  a  much  more 
subtle  kind  of  snobbishness  pervading  the  atmosphere 
of  any  society  trial  in  England,  And  the  first  thing  that 
struck  me  was  the  total  absence  of  that  atmosphere  in 
the  trial  at  Oklahoma.  Mr.  Hamon  was  presumably  a 
member  of  the  Upper  Ten,  if  there  is  such  a  thing.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Senate  or  Upper  House  in  the 
American  Parliament;  he  was  a  millionaire  and  a  pillar 
of  the  Republican  party,  which  might  be  called  the  re 
spectable  party;  he  is  said  to  have  been  mentioned  as  a 
possible  President.  And  the  speeches  of  Clara  Smith's 
counsel,  who  was  known  by  the  delightfully  Oklahomite 
title  of  Wild  Bill  McLean,  were  wild  enough  in  all  con 
science;  but  they  left  very  little  of  my  friend's  illusion  that 
members  of  the  Upper  Ten  could  not  be  accused  of 
crimes.  Nero  and  Borgia  were  quite  presentable  people 
compared  with  Sentor  Hamon  when  Wild  Bill  McLean 
had  done  with  him.  But  the  difference  was  deeper,  and 
even  in  a  sense  more  delicate  than  this.  There  is  a  certain 
tone  about  English  trials,  which  does  at  least  begin  with 
a  certain  scepticism  about  people  prominent  in  public 
life  being  abominable  in  private  life.  People  do  vaguely 
doubt  the  criminality  of  'a  man  in  that  position' ;  that  is, 
the  position  of  the  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers  or  the  Mar 
quis  de  Sade.  Prima  facie,  it  would  be  an  advantage 
to  the  Marquis  de  Sade  that  he  was  a  marquis.  But  it 
was  certainly  against  Hamon  that  he  was  a  millionaire. 
Wild  Bill  did  not  minimise  him  as  a  bankrupt  or  an  ad 
venturer;  he  insisted  on  the  solidity  and  size  of  his  for 
tune,  he  made  mountains  out  of  the  'Hamon  millions/ 
as  if  they  made  the  matter  much  worse;  as  indeed  I  think 


184  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

they  do.  But  that  is  because  I  happen  to  share  a  certain 
political  philosophy  with  Wild  Bill  and  other  wild  buffa 
loes  of  the  prairies.  In  other  words,  there  is  really  pres 
ent  here  a  democratic  instinct  against  the  domination  of 
wealth.  It  does  not  prevent  wealth  from  dominating; 
but  it  does  prevent  the  domination  from  being  regarded 
with  any  affection  or  loyalty.  Despite  the  man  in  the 
starry  coat,  the  Americans  have  not  really  any  illusions 
about  the  Upper  Ten.  McLean  was  appealing  to  an 
implicit  public  opinion  when  he  pelted  the  Senator  with 
his  gold. 

But  something  more  is  involved.  I  became  conscious, 
as  I  have  been  conscious  in  reading  the  crime  novels  of 
America,  that  the  millionaire  was  taken  as  a  type  and 
not  an  individual.  This  is  the  great  difference;  that 
America  recognises  rich  crooks  as  a  class.  Any  English 
man  might  recognise  them  as  individuals.  Any  English 
romance  may  turn  on  a  crime  in  high  life;  in  which  the 
baronet  is  found  to  have  poisoned  his  wife,  or  the  elusive 
burglar  turns  out  to  be  the  bishop.  But  the  English  are 
not  always  saying,  either  in  romance  or  reality,  'What's 
to  be  done,  if  our  food  is  being  poisoned  by  all  these 
baronets?'  They  do  not  murmur  in  indignation,  'If  bish 
ops  will  go  on  burgling  like  this,  something  must  be 
done.'  The  whole  point  of  the  English  romance  is  the 
exceptional  character  of  a  crime  in  high  life.  That  is  not 
the  tone  of  American  novels  or  American  newspapers  or 
American  trials  like  the  trial  in  Oklahoma.  Americans 
may  be  excited  when  a  millionaire  crook  is  caught,  as 
when  any  other  crook  is  caught;  but  it  is  at  his  being 
caught,  not  at  his  being  discovered.  To  put  the  matter 
shortly,  England  recognises  a  criminal  class  at  the  bottom 
of  the  social  scale.  America  also  recognises  a  criminal 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     185 

class  at  the  top  of  the  social  scale.  In  both,  for  various 
reasons,  it  may  be  difficult  for  the  criminals  to  be  con 
victed;  but  in  America  the  upper  class  of  criminals  is 
recognised.  In  both  America  and  England,  of  course,  it 
exists. 

This  is  an  assumption  at  the  back  of  the  American 
mind  which  makes  a  great  difference  in  many  ways; 
and  in  my  opinion  a  difference  for  the  better.  I  wrote 
merely  fancifully  just  now  about  bishops  being  burglars; 
but  there  is  a  story  in  New  York,  illustrating  this,  which 
really  does  in  a  sense  attribute  a  burglary  to  a  bishop. 
The  story  was  that  an  Anglican  Lord  Spiritual,  of  the 
pompous  and  now  rather  antiquated  school,  was  pushing 
open  the  door  of  a  poor  American  tenement  with  all  the 
placid  patronage  of  the  squire  and  rector  visiting  the  cot 
tagers,  when  a  gigantic  Irish  policeman  came  round  the 
corner  and  hit  him  a  crack  over  the  head  with  a  trun 
cheon  on  the  assumption  that  he  was  a  house-breaker.  I 
hope  that  those  who  laugh  at  the  story  see  that  the  laugh 
is  not  altogether  against  the  policeman ;  and  that  it  is  not 
only  the  policeman,  but  rather  the  bishop,  who  had  failed 
to  recognise  some  final  logical  distinctions.  The  bishop, 
being  a  learned  man,  might  well  be  called  upon  (when  he 
had  sufficiently  recovered  from  the  knock  on  the  head)  to 
define  what  is  the  exact  difference  between  a  house 
breaker  and  a  home-visitor;  and  why  the  home- visitor 
should  not  be  regarded  as  a  house-breaker  when  he  will 
not  behave  as  a  guest.  An  impartial  intelligence  will  be 
much  less  shocked  at  the  policeman's  disrespect  for  the 
home-visitor  than  by  the  home-visitor's  disrespect  for  the 
home. 

But  that  story  smacks  of  the  western  soil,  precisely 
because  of  the  element  of  brutality  there  is  in  it.  In  Eng- 


186  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

land  snobbishness  and  social  oppression  are  much  subtler 
and  softer;  the  manifestations  of  them  at  least  are  more 
mellow  and  humane.  In  Comparison  there  is  indeed 
Something  which  people  call  ruthless  about  the  air  of 
America,  especially  the  American  cities.  The  bishop  may 
push  open  the  door  without  an  apology,  but  he  would 
not  break  open  the  door  with  a  truncheon;  but  the  Irish 
policeman's  truncheon  hits  both  ways,  It  may  be  brutal 
to  the  tenement  dweller  as  well  as  to  the  bishop ;  but  the 
difference  and  distinction  is  that  it  might  really  be  brutal 
to  the  bishop.  It  is  because  there  is  after  all,  at  the  back 
of  all  that  barbarism,  a  sort  of  a  negative  belief  in  the 
brotherhood  of  men,  a  dark  democratic  sense  that  men 
are  really  men  and  nothing  more,  that  the  coarse  and 
even  corrupt  bureaucracy  is  not  resented  exactly  as  oligar 
chic  bureaucracies  are  resented.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  corruption  is  not  so  narrow  as  nepotism.  It  is 
upon  this  queer  cynical  charity,  and  even  humility,  that 
it  has  been  possible  to  rear  so  high  and  uphold  so  long 
that  tower  of  brass,  Tammany  Hall.  The  modern  police 
system  is  in  spirit  the  most  inhuman  in  history,  and  its 
evil  belongs  to  an  age  and  not  to  a  nation.  But  some 
American  police  methods  are  evil  past  all  parallel ;  and  the 
detective  can  be  more  crooked  than  a  hundred  crooks. 
But  in  the  States  it  is  not  only  possible  that  the  policeman 
is  worse  than  the  convict,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
he  thinks  that  he  is  any  better.  In  the  popular  stories  of 
O.  Henry  there  are  light  allusions  to  tramps  being  thrown 
out  of  hotels  which  will  make  any  Christian  seek  relief 
in  strong  language  and  a  trust  in  heaven — not  to  say  in 
hell  And  yet  books  even  more  popular  than  O.  Henry's 
are  those  of  the  'sob-sisterhood'  who  swim  in  lachrymose 
lakes  after  love-lorn  spinsters,  who  pass  their  lives  in  re- 


THE  EXTRAORDINARY  AMERICAN     187 

claiming  and  consoling  such  tramps.  There  are  in  this 
people  two  strains  of  brutality  and  sentimentalism  which 
I  do  not  understand,  especially  where  they  mingle;  but 
I  am  fairly  sure  they  both  work  back  to  the  dim  demo 
cratic  origin.  The  Irish  policeman  does  not  confine  him 
self  fastidiously  to  bludgeoning  bishops;  his  truncheon 
finds  plenty  of  poor  people's  heads  to  hit ;  and  yet  I  believe 
on  my  soul  he  has  a  sort  of  sympathy  with  poor  people 
not  to  be  found  in  the  police  of  more  aristocratic  states. 
I  believe  he  also  reads  and  weeps  over  the  stories  of  the 
spinsters  and  the  reclaimed  tramps ;  in  fact,  there  is  much 
of  such  pathos  in  an  American  magazine  (my  sole  com 
panion  on  many  happy  railway  journeys)  which  is  not 
only  devoted  to  detective  stories,  but  apparently  edited  by 
detectives.  In  these  stories  also  there  is  the  honest  pop 
ular  astonishment  at  the  Upper  Ten  expressed  by  the  as 
tronomical  detective,  if  indeed  he  was  a  detective  and  not  a 
demon  from  the  dark  Red-Indian  forests  that  faded  to  the 
horizon  behind  him.  But  I  have  set  him  as  the  head  and 
text  of  this  chapter  because  with  these  elements  of  the 
Third  Degree  of  devilry  and  the  Seventh  Heaven  of 
sentimentalism  I  touch  on  elements  that  I  do  not  under 
stand  ;  and  when  I  do  not  Understand,  I  say  so. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS 

THE  heathen  in  his  blindness  bows  down  to  wood 
and  stone;  especially  to  a  wood-cut  or  a  litho 
graphic  stone.  Modern  people  put  their  trust 
in  pictures,  especially  scientific  pictures,  as  much  as  the 
most  superstitious  ever  put  it  in  religious  pictures.  They 
publish  a  portrait  of  the  Missing  Link  as  if  he  were  the 
Missing  Man,  for  whom  the  police  are  always  advertis 
ing;  for  all  the  world  as  if  the  anthropoid  had  been 
photographed  before  he  absconded.  The  scientific  dia 
gram  may  be  a  hypothesis ;  it  may  be  a  fancy ;  it  may  be  a 
'forgery.  But  it  is  always  an  idol  in  the  true  sense  of  an 
image ;  and  an  image  in  the  true  sense  of  a  thing  master 
ing  the  imagination  and  not  the  reason.  The  power  of 
these  talismanic  pictures  is  almost  hypnotic  to  modern 
humanity.  We  can  never  forget  that  we  have  seen  a  por 
trait  of  the  Missing  Link;  though  we  should  instantly 
detect  the  lapse  of  logic  into  superstition,  if  we  were  told 
that  the  old  Greek  agnostics  had  made  a  statue  of  the 
Unknown  God.  But  there  is  a  still  stranger  fashion  in 
which  we  fall  victims  to  the  same  trick  of  fancy.  We 
accept  in  a  blind  and  literal  spirit,  not  only  images  of 
speculation,  but  even  figures  of  speech.  The  nineteenth 
century  prided  itself  on  having  lost  its  faith  in  myths, 
and  proceeded  to  put  all  its  faith  in  metaphors.  It  dis 
missed  the  old  doctrines  about  the  way  of  life  and  the 
light  of  the  world;  and  then  it  proceeded  to  talk  as  if  the 
light  of  truth  were  really  and  literally  a  light,  that  could 
be  absorbed  by  merely  opening  our  eyes;  or  as  if  the  path 

188 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      189 

of  progress  were  really  and  truly  a  path,  to  be  found  by 
merely  following  our  noses.  Thus  the  purpose  of  God 
is  an  idea,  true  or  false;  but  the  purpose  of  Nature  is 
merely  a  metaphor;  for  obviously  if  there  is  no  God  there 
is  no  purpose.  Yet  while  men,  by  an  imaginative  in 
stinct,  spoke  of  the  purpose  of  God  with  a  grand  agnosti 
cism,  as  something  too  large  to  be  seen,  something  reach 
ing  out  to  worlds  and  to  eternities,  they  talk  of  the  pur 
pose  of  Nature  in  particular  and  practical  problems  of 
curing  babies  or  cutting  up  rabbits.  The  power  of  the 
modern  metaphor  must  be  understood,  by  way  of  an  in 
troduction,  if  we  are  to  understand  one  of  the  chief  errors, 
at  once  evasive  and  pervasive,  which  perplex  the  problem 
of  America. 

America  is  always  spoken  of  as  a  young  nation;  and 
whether  or  no  this  be  a  valuable  and  suggestive  metaphor, 
very  few  people  notice  that  it  is  a  metaphor  at  all.  If 
somebody  said  that  a  certain  deserving  charity  had  just 
gone  into  trousers,  we  should  recognise  that  it  was  a 
figure  of  speech,  and  perhaps  a  rather  surprising  figure  of 
speech.  If  somebody  said  that  a  daily  paper  had  recently 
put  its  hair  up,  we  should  know  it  could  only  be  a  meta 
phor,  and  possibly  a  rather  strained  metaphor.  Yet  these 
phrases  would  mean  the  only  thing  that  can  possibly  be 
meant  by  calling  a  corporate  association  of  all  sorts  of 
people  'young' ;  that  is,  that  a  certain  institution  has  only 
existed  for  a  certain  time.  I  am  not  now  denying  that 
such  a  corporate  nationality  may  happen  to  have  a  psy 
chology  comparatively  analogous  to  the  psychology  of 
youth.  I  am  not  even  denying  that  America  has  it.  I  am 
only  pointing  out,  to  begin  with,  that  we  must  free  our 
selves  from  the  talismanic  tyranny  of  a  metaphor  which 
we  do  recognise  as  a  metaphor.  Men  realised  that  the  old 


i9o  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

mystical  doctrines  were  mystical;  they  do  not  realise 
that  the  new  metaphors  are  metaphorical.  They  have 
some,  sort  of  hazy  notion  that  American  society  must  be 
growing,  must  be  promising,  must  have  the  virtues  of 
hope  or  the  faults  of  ignorance,  merely  because  it  has  only 
had  a  separate  existence  since  the  eighteenth  century. 
And  that  is  exactly  like  saying  that  a  new  chapel  must  be 
growing  taller,  or  that  a  limited  liability  company  will 
soon  have  its  second  teeth. 

Now  in  truth  this  particular  conception  of  American 
hopefulness  would  be  anything  but  hopeful  for  America. 
If  the  argument  really  were,  as  it  is  still  vaguely  supposed 
to  be,  that  America  must  have  a  long  life  before  it,  be 
cause  it  only  started  in  the  eighteenth  century,  we  should 
find  a  very  fatal  answer  by  looking  at  the  other  political 
systems  that  did  start  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
eighteenth  century  was  called  the  Age  of  Reason;  and 
there  is  a  very  real  sense  in  which  the  other  systems  were 
indeed  started  in  a  spirit  of  reason.  But  starting 
from  reason  has  not  saved  them  from  ruin.  If  we  survey 
the  Europe  of  to-day  with  real  clarity  and  historic  com 
prehension,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  precisely  the  most  re 
cent  and  the  most  rationalistic  creations  that  have  been 
ruined.  The  two  great  states  which  did  most  definitely 
and  emphatically  deserve  to  be  called  modern  states  were 
Prussia  and  Russia.  There  was  no  real  Prussia  before 
Frederick  the  Great;  no  real  Russian  Empire  before 
Peter  the  Great.  Both  those  innovators  recognised 
themselves  as  rationalists  bringing  a  new  reason  and 
order  into  an  indeterminate  barbarism;  and  doing  for 
the  barbarians  what  the  barbarians  could  not  do  for 
themselves.  They  did  not,  like  the  kings  of  England 
or  France  or  Spain  or  Scotland,  inherit  a  sceptre  that 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      191 

•was  the  symbol  of  a  historic  and  patriotic  people.  In 
this  sense  there  was  no  Russia  but  only  an  Emperor 
of  Russia.  In  this  sense  Prussia  was  a  kingdom  before 
it  was  a  nation;  if  it  ever  was  a  nation.  But  anyhow 
both  men  were  particularly  modern  in  their  whole  mood 
and  mind.  They  were  modern  to  the  extent  of  being 
not  only  anti-traditional,  but  almost  anti-patriotic. 
Peter  forced  the  science  of  the  West  on  Russia  to  the  re 
gret  of  many  Russians.  Frederick  talked  the  French  of 
Voltaire  and  not  the  German  of  Luther.  The  two  experi 
ments  were  entirely  in  the  spirit  of  Voltairean  rationalism ; 
they  were  built  in  broad  daylight  by  men  who  believed  in 
nothing  but  the  light  of  common  day;  and  already  their 
day  is  done. 

If  then  the  promise  of  America  were  in  the  fact  that 
she  is  one  of  the  latest  births  of  progress,  we  should 
point  out  that  it  is  exactly  the  latest  born  that  were  the 
first  to  die.  If  in  this  sense  she  is  praised  as  young,  it 
may  be  answered  that  the  young  have  died  young,  and 
have  not  lived  to  be  old.  And  if  this  be  confused  with 
the  argument  that  she  came  in  an  age  of  clarity  and 
scepticism,  uncontaminated  by  old  superstitions,  it  could 
still  be  retorted  that  the  works  of  superstition  have  sur 
vived  the  works  of  scepticism.  But  the  truth  is,  of 
course,  that  the  real  quality  of  America  is  much  more 
subtle  and  complex  than  this;  and  is  mixed  not  only  of 
good  and  bad,  and  rational  and  mystical,  but  also  of  old 
and  new.  That  is  what  makes  the  task  of  tracing  the 
true  proportions  of  American  life  so  interesting  and  so 
impossible. 

To  begin  with,  such  a  metaphor  is  always  as  distract 
ing  as  a  mixed  metaphor.  It  is  a  double-edged  tool  that 
cuts  both  ways;  and  consequently  opposite  ways.  We 


192  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

use  the  same  word  'young'  to  mean  two  opposite  ex 
tremes.  We  mean  something  at  an  early  stage  of 
growth,  and  also  something  having  the  latest  fruits  of 
growth.  We  might  call  a  commonwealth  young  if  it 
conducted  all  its  daily  conversation  by  wireless  telegra 
phy;  meaning  that  it  was  progressive.  But  we  might 
also  call  it  young  if  it  conducted  all  its  industry  with 
chipped  flints;  meaning  that  it  was  primitive.  These 
two  meanings  of  youth  are  hopelessly  mixed  up  when 
the  word  is  applied  to  America.  But  what  is  more  curi 
ous,  the  two  elements  really  are  wildly  .entangled  in 
America.  America  is  in  some  ways  what  is  called  in 
advance  of  the  times,  and  in  some  ways  what  is  called 
behind  the  times ;  but  it  seems  a  little  confusing  to  con 
vey  both  notions  by  the  same  word. 

On  the  one  hand,  Americans  often  are  successful  in 
the  last  inventions.  And  for  that  very  reason  they  are 
often  neglectful  of  the  last  but  one.  It  is  true  of  men 
in  general,  dealing  with  things  in  general,  that  while 
they  are  progressing  in  one  thing,  such  as  science,  they 
are  going  back  in  another  thing,  such  as  art.  What  is 
less  fully  realized  is  that  this  is  true  even  as  between  dif 
ferent  methods  of  science.  The  perfection  of  wireless 
telegraphy  might  well  be  followed  by  the  gross  imper 
fection  of  wires.  The  very  enthusiasm  of  American 
science  brings  this  out  very  vividly.  The  telephone  in 
New  York  works  miracles  all  day  long.  Replies  from 
remote  places  come  as  promptly  as  in  a  private  talk;  no 
body  cuts  anybody  off;  nobody  says,  'Sorry  you've 
been  troubled.'  But  then  the  postal  service  of  New 
York  does  not  work  at  all.  At  least  I  could  never 
discover  it  working.  Letters  lingered  in  it  for  days 
and  days,  as  in  some  wild  Village  of  the  Pyrenees. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      193 

When  I  asked  a  taxi-driver  to  drive  me  to  a  post-office, 
a  look  of  far-off  vision  and  adventure  came  into  his 
eyes,  and  he  said  he  had  once  heard  of  a  post-office 
somewhere  near  West  Ninety-Seventh  Street.  Men 
are  not  efficient  in  everything,  but  only  in  the  fashion 
able  thing.  This  may  be  a  mark  of  the  march  of 
science;  it  does  certainly  in  one  sense  deserve  the  de 
scription  of  youth.  We  can  imagine  a  very  young 
person  forgetting  the  old  toy  in  the  excitement  of  a 
new  one. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  American  manners  contain 
much  that  is  called  young  in  the  contrary  sense;  in  the 
sense  of  an  earlier  stage  of  history.  There  are  whole 
patches  and  particular  aspects  that  seem  to  me  quite 
Early  Victorian.  I  cannot  help  having  this  sensation, 
for  instance,  about  the  arrangement  for  smoking  in  the 
railway  carriages.  There  are  no  smoking  carriages,  as 
a  rule ;  but  a  corner  of  each  of  the  great  cars  is  curtained 
off  mysteriously,  that  a  man  may  go  behind  the  curtain 
and  smoke.  Nobody  thinks  of  a  woman  doing  so.  It 
is  regarded  as  a  dark,  bohemian,  and  almost  brutally 
masculine  indulgence;  exactly  as  it  was  regarded  by  the 
dowagers  in  Thackeray's  novels.  Indeed,  this  is  one  of 
the  many  such  cases  in  which  extremes  meet;  the  ex 
tremes  of  stuffy  antiquity  and  cranky  modernity.  The 
American  dowager  is  sorry  that  tobacco  was  ever  intro 
duced;  and  the  American  suffragette  and  social  re 
former  is  considering  whether  tobacco  ought  not  to  be 
abolished.  The  tone  of  American  society  suggests 
some  sort  of  compromise,  by  which  women  will  be 
allowed  to  smoke,  but  men  forbidden  to  do  so. 

In  one  respect,  however,  America  is  very  old  indeed. 
In  one  respect  America  is  more  historic  than  England; 


194  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

I  might  almost  say  more  archaeological  than  England. 
The  record  of  one  period  of  the  past,  morally  remote 
and  probably  irrevocable,  is  there  preserved  in  a  more 
perfect  form  as  a  pagan  city  is  preserved  at  Pompeii. 
In  a  more  general  sense,  of  course,  it  is  easy  to  exag 
gerate  the  contrast  as  a  mere  contrast  between  the  old 
world  and  the  new.  There  is  a  superficial  satire  about 
the  millionaire's  daughter  who  has  recently  become  the 
wife  of  an  aristocrat;  but  there  is  a  rather  more  subtle 
satire  in  the  question  of  how  long  the  aristocrat  has 
been  aristocratic.  There  is  often  much  misplaced 
mockery  of  a  marriage  between  an  upstart's  daughter 
and  a  decayed  relic  of  feudalism;  when  it  is  really  a 
marriage  between  an  upstart's  daughter  and  an  upstart's 
grandson.  The  sentimental  socialist  often  seems  to 
admit  the  blue  blood  of  the  nobleman,  even  when  he 
wants  to  shed  it;  just  as  he  seems  to  admit  the  mar 
vellous  brains  of  the  millionaire,  even  when  he  wants  to 
blow  them  out.  Unfortunately  (in  the  interests  of 
social  science,  of  course)  the  sentimental  socialist  never 
does  go  so  far  as  bloodshed  or  blowing  out  brains ;  other 
wise  the  colour  and  quality  of  both  blood  and  brains 
would  probably  be  a  disappointment  to  him.  There  are 
certainly  more  American  families  that  really  came  over 
in  the  Mayflower  than  English  families  that  really  came 
over  with  the  Conqueror;  and  an  English  county  family 
clearly  dating  from  the  time  of  the  Mayflower  would  be 
considered  a  very  traditional  and  historic  house.  Never 
theless,  there  are  ancient  things  in  England,  though  the 
aristocracy  is  hardly  one  of  them.  There  are  buildings, 
there  are  institutions,  there  are  even  ideas  in  England 
which  do  preserve,  as  in  a  perfect  pattern,  some  particular 
epoch  of  the  past,  and  even  of  the  remote  past.  A  man 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      195 

could  study  the  Middle  Ages  in  Lincoln  as  well  as  in 
Rouen;  in  Canterbury  as  well  as  in  Cologne.  Even  of 
the  Renaissance  the  same  is  true,  at  least  on  the  literary 
side;  if  Shakespeare  was  later  he  was  also  greater  than 
Ronsard.  But  the  point  is  that  the  spirit  and  philosophy 
of  the  periods  were  present  in  fullness  and  in  freedom. 
The  guildsmen  were  as  Christian  in  England  as  they 
were  anywhere;  the  poets  were  as  pagan  in  England  as 
they  were  anywhere.  Personally  I  do  not  admit  that 
the  men  who  served  patrons  were  freer  than  those  who 
served  patron  saints.  But  each  fashion  had  its  own  kind 
of  freedom ;  and  the  point  is  that  the  English,  in  each  case, 
had  the  fullness  of  that  kind  of  freedom.  But  there  was 
another  ideal  of  freedom  which  the  English  never  had  at 
all;  or,  anyhow,  never  expressed  at  all.  There  was  an 
other  ideal,  the  soul  of  another  epoch,  round  which  we 
built  no  monuments  and  wrote  no  masterpieces.  You 
will  find  no  traces  of  it  in  England;  but  you  will  find 
them  in  America. 

The  thing  I  mean  was  the  real  religion  of  the  eight 
eenth  century.  Its  religion,  in  the  more  defined  sense, 
was  generally  Deism,  as  in  Robespierre  or  Jefferson. 
In  the  more  general  way  of  morals  and  atmosphere  it 
was  rather  Stoicism,  as  in  the  suicide  of  Wolfe  Tone. 
It  had  certain  very  noble  and,  as  some  would  say,  im 
possible  ideals;  as  that  a  politician  should  be  poor,  and 
should  be  proud  of  being  poor.  It  knew  Latin;  and 
therefore  insisted  on  the  strange  fancy  that  the  Republic 
should  be  a  public  thing.  Its  Republican  simplicity  was 
anything  but  a  silly  pose;  unless  all  martyrdom  is  a  silly 
pose.  Even  of  the  prigs  and  fanatics  of  the  American 
and  French  Revolutions  we  can  often  say,  as  Stevenson 
said  of  an  American,  that  'thrift  and  courage  glowed  in 


196  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

him.'  And  its  virtue  and  value  for  us  is  that  it  did 
remember  the  things  we  now  most  tend  to  forget;  from 
the  dignity  of  liberty  to  the  danger  of  luxury.  It  did 
really  believe  in  self-determination,  in  the  self-determina 
tion  of  the  self,  as  well  as  of  the  state.  And  its  deter 
mination  was  really  determined.  In  short,  it  believed  in 
self-respect;  and  it  is  strictly  true  even  of  its  rebels  and 
regicides  that  they  desired  chiefly  to  be  respectable.  But 
there  were  in  it  the  marks  of  religion  as  well  as  respect 
ability;  it  had  a  creed;  it  had  a  crusade.  Men  died 
singing  its  songs ;  men  starved  rather  than  write  against 
its  principles.  And  its  principles  were  liberty,  equality, 
and  fraternity,  or  the  dogmas  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  This  was  the  idea  that  redeemed  the  dreary 
negations  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  there  are  still 
corners  of  Philadelphia  or  Boston  or  Baltimore  where 
we  can  feel  so  suddenly  in  the  silence  its  plain  garb  and 
formal  manners,  that  the  walking  ghost  of  Jefferson 
would  hardly  surprise  us. 

There  is  not  the  ghost  of  such  a  thing  in  England. 
In  England  the  real  religion  of  the  eighteenth  century 
never  found  freedom  or  scope.  It  never  cleared  a  space 
in  which  to  build  that  cold  and  classic  building  called 
the  Capitol.  It  never  made  elbow-room  for  that  free  if 
sometimes  frigid  figure  called  the  Citizen. 

In  eighteenth-century  England  he  was  crowded  out, 
partly  perhaps  by  the  relics  of  better  things  of  the  past, 
but  largely  at  least  by  the  presence  of  much  worse  things 
in  the  present.  The  worst  things  kept  out  the  best 
things  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  ground  was 
occupied  by  legal  fictions;  by  a  godless  Erastian  church 
and  a  powerless  Hanoverian  king.  Its  realties  were  an 
aristocracy  of  Regency  dandies,  in  costumes  made  to 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      197 

match  Brighton  Pavilion;  a  paganism  not  frigid  but 
florid.  It  was  a  touch  of  this  aristocratic  waste  in  Fox 
that  prevented  that  great  man  from  being  a  glorious 
exception.  It  is  therefore  well  for  us  to  realise  that 
there  is  something  in  history  which  we  did  not  expe 
rience;  and  therefore  probably  something  in  Americans 
that  we  do  not  understand.  There  was  this  idealism  at 
the  very  beginning  of  their  individualism.  There  was 
a  note  of  heroic  publicity  and  honourable  poverty  which 
lingers  in  the  very  name  of  Cincinnati. 

But  I  have  another  and  special  reason  for  noting  this 
historical  fact ;  the  fact  that  we  English  never  made  any 
thing  upon  the  model  of  a  capitol,  while  we  can  match 
anybody  with  the  model  of  a  cathedral.  It  is  far  from 
improbable  that  the  latter  model  may  again  be  a  working 
model.  For  I  have  myself  felt,  naturally  and  for  a  long 
time,  a  warm  sympathy  with  both  those  past  ideals,  which 
seem  to  some  so  incompatible.  I  have  felt  the  attraction 
of  the  red  cap  as  well  as  the  red  cross,  of  the  Marseillaise 
as  well  as  the  Magnificat.  And  even  when  they  were  in 
furious  conflict  I  have  never  altogether  lost  my  sympathy 
for  either.  But  in  the  conflict  between  the  Republic  and 
the  Church,  the  point  often  made  against  the  Church 
seems  to  me  much  more  of  a  point  against  the  Republic.  * 
It  is  emphatically  the  Republic  and  not  the  Church  that  I 
venerate  as  something  beautiful  but  belonging  to  the 
past.  In  fact  I  feel  exactly  the  same  sort  of  sad  respect 
for  the  republican  ideal  that  many  mid-Victorian  free 
thinkers  felt  for  the  religious  ideal.  The  most  sincere 
poets  of  that  period  were  largely  divided  between  those 
who  insisted,  like  Arnold  and  Clough,  that  Christianity 

*  Throughout  the  conclusion  of  this  chapter  I  mean  by  the  Re 
public  not  merely  the  American  system,  but  the  whole  modern 
elective  system,  as  in  France  or  even  in  England. 


198  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

might  be  a  ruin,  but  after  all  it  must  be  treated  as  a 
picturesque  ruin;  and  those,  like  Swinburne,  who  in 
sisted  that  it  might  be  a  picturesque  ruin,  but  after  all  it 
must  be  treated  as  a  ruin.  But  surely  their  own  pagan 
temple  of  political  liberty  is  now  much  more  of  a  ruin 
than  the  other;  and  I  fancy  I  am  one  of  the  few  who 
still  take  off  their  hats  in  that  ruined  temple.  That  is 
why  I  went  about  looking  for  the  fading  traces  of  that 
lost  cause,  in  the  old-world  atmosphere  of  the  new 
world. 

But  I  do  not,  as  a  fact,  feel  that  the  cathedral  is  a  ruin ; 
I  doubt  if  I  should  feel  it  even  if  I  wished  to  lay  it  in 
ruins.  I  doubt  if  Mr.  McCabe  really  thinks  that  Catholi 
cism  is  dying,  though  he  might  deceive  himself  into  saying 
so.  Nobody  could  be  naturally  moved  to  say  that  the 
crowded  cathedral  of  St.  Patrick  in  New  York  was  a 
ruin,  or  even  that  the  unfinished  Anglo-Catholic  cathe 
dral  at  Washington  was  a  ruin,  though  it  is  not  yet  a 
church;  or  that  there  is  anything  lost  or  lingering  about 
the  splendid  and  spirited  Gothic  churches  springing  up 
under  the  inspiration  of  Mr.  Cram  of  Boston.  As  a 
matter  of  feeling,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  a  matter  quite 
apart  from  theory  or  opinion,  it  is  not  in  the  religious 
centres  that  we  now  have  the  feeling  of  something  beau 
tiful  but  receding,  of  something  loved  but  lost.  It  is 
exactly  in  the  spaces  cleared  and  levelled  by  America  for 
the  large  and  sober  religion  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
it  is  where  an  old  house  in  Philadelphia  contains  an  old 
picture  of  Franklin,  or  where  the  men  of  Maryland 
raised  above  their  city  the  first  monument  of  Washing 
ton.  It  is  there  that  I  feel  like  one  who  treads  alone 
some  banquet  hall  deserted,  whose  lights  are  fled,  whose 


THE  REPUBLICAN  IN  THE  RUINS      199 

garlands   dead,  and  all  save  he  departed.     It  13  then 
that  I  feel  as  if  I  were  the  last  Republican. 

But  when  I  say  that  the  Republic  of  the  Age  of  Reason 
is  now  a  ruin,  I  should  rather  say  that  at  its  best  it  is  a 
ruin.  At  its  worst  it  has  collapsed  into  a  death-trap  or 
is  rotting  like  a  dunghill.  What  is  the  real  Republic  of 
our  day,  as  distinct  from  the  ideal  Republic  of  our  fa 
thers,  but  a  heap  of  corrupt  capitalism  crawling  with 
worms;  with  those  parasites,  the  professional  politicians? 
I  was  re-reading  Swinburne's  bitter  but  not  ignoble 
poem,  'Before  a  Crucifix,'  in  which  he  bids  Chri-st,  or  the 
ecclesiastical  image  of  Christ,  stand  out  of  the  way  of 
the  onward  march  of  political  idealism  represented  by 
United  Italy  or  the  French  Republic.  I  was  struck  by 
the  strange  and  ironic  exactitude  with  which  every  taunt 
he  flings  at  the  degradation  of  the  old  divine  ideal  would 
now  fit  the  degradation  of  his  own  human  ideal.  The 
time  has  already  come  when  we  can  ask  his  Goddess  of 
Liberty,  as  represented  by  the  actual  Liberals,  'Have 
you  filled  full  men's  starved-out  souls ;  have  you  brought 
freedom  on  the  earth  ?'  For  every  engine  in  which  these 
old  free-thinkers  firmly  and  confidently  trusted  has  itself 
become  an  engine  of  oppression  and  even  of  class  oppres 
sion.  Its  free  Parliament  has  become  an  oligarchy.  Its 
free  press  has  become  a  monopoly.  If  the  pure  Church 
has  been  corrupted  in  the  course  of  two  thousand  years, 
what  about  the  pure  Republic  that  has  rotted  into  a  filthy 
plutocracy  in  less  than  a  hundred? 

O  hidden  face  of  man,  whereover 
The  years  have  woven  a  viewless  veil, 
If  thou  wert  verily  man's  lover 


200  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

What  did  thy  love  or  blood  avail? 
Thy  blood  the  priests  make  poison  of; 
And  in  gold  shekels  coin  thy  love. 

Which  has  most  to  do  with  shekels  to-day,  the 
priests  or  the  politicians?  Can  we  say  in  any  special 
sense  nowadays  that  clergymen,  as  such,  make  a  poison 
out  of  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  ?  Can  we  say  it  in  any 
thing  like  the  real  sense,  in  which  we  do  say  that  yellow 
journalists  make  a  poison  out  of  the  blood  of  the  soldiers  ? 

But  I  understand  how  Swinburne  felt  when  con 
fronted  by  the  image  of  the  carven  Christ,  and,  per 
plexed  by  the  contrast  between  its  claims  and  its  con 
sequences,  he  said  his  strange  farewell  to  it,  hastily  in 
deed,  but  not  without  regret,  not  even  really  without  re 
spect.  I  felt  the  same  myself  when  I  looked  for  the 
last  time  on  thei  Statue  of  Liberty. 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC   NARROWING? 

A  CERTAIN  ^ind  of  question  is  asked  very  earn 
estly  in  our  time.  Because  of  a  certain  logical 
quality  in  it,  connected  with  premises  and  data, 
it  is  very  difficult  to  answer.  Thus  people  will  ask  what 
is  the  'hidden  weakness  in  the  Celtic  race  that  makes  it 
everywhere  fail  or  fade  away;  or  how  the  Germans  con 
trived  to  bring  all  their  organisation  into  a  state  of  such 
perfect  efficiency;  and  what  was  the  significance  of  the  re 
cent  victory  of  Prussia.  Ojr  they  will  ask  by  what  stages 
the  modern  world  has  abandoned  all  belief  in  miracles; 
and  the  modern  newspapers  ceased  to  print  any  news  of 
murders.  They  will  as^k  why  English  politics  are  free 
from  corruption;  or  by  what  mental  and  moral  training 
certain  millionaires  were  enabled  to  succeed  by  sheer 
force  of  character;  in  short,  they  will  ask  why  plutocrats 
govern*  well  and  "how  it  is  that  pigs  fly,  spreading  their 
pink  pinions  to  the  breeze  or  delighting  us  as  they  twitter 
and  flutter  from  tree  to  tree.  The  logical  difficulty  of 
answering  these  questions  is  connected  with  an  old  story 
about  Charles  the  Second  and  a  bowl  of  goldfish,  and 
with  another  anecdote  about  a  gentleman  who  was  asked, 
When  did  you  leave  off  beating  your  wife?'  But  there 
is  something  analogous  to  it  in  the  present  discussions 
about  the  forces  drawing  England  and  America  together. 
It  seems  as  if  the  reasoners  hardly  went  far  enough  back 
in  their  argument,  or  took  trouble  enough  to  disentangle 
their  assumptions.  They  are  still  moving  with  the  mo 
mentum  of  the  peculiar  nineteenth-century  notion  of  prog- 

201 


202        WHAT  i  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ress;  of  certain  very  simple  tendencies  perpetually  in 
creasing  and  needing  no  special  analysis.  It  is  so  with 
the  international  rapprochement  I  have  to  consider  here. 

In  other  places  I  have  ventured  to  express  a  doubt  about 
whether  nations  can  be  drawn  together  by  an  ancient  ru 
mour  about  races ;  by  a  sort  of  prehistoric  chit-chat  or  the 
gossip  of  the  Stone  Age.  I  have  ventured  farther;  and 
even  expressed  a  doubt  about  whether  they  ought  to  be 
drawn  together,  or  rather  dragged  together,  by  the  brute 
violence  of  the  engines  of  science  and  speed.  But  there 
is  yet  another  horrible  doubt  haunting  my  morbid  mind, 
which  it  will  be  better  for  my  constitution  to  confess 
frankly.  And  that  is  the  doubt  about  whether  they  are 
being  drawn  together  at  all. 

It  has  long  been  a  conversational  commonplace  among 
the  enlightened  that  all  countries  are  coming  closer  and 
closer  to  each  other.  It  was  a  conversational  common 
place  among  the  enlightened,  somewhere  about  the  year 
1913,  that  all  wars  were  receding  farther  and  farther  into 
a  barbaric  past.  There  is  something  about  these  sayings 
that  seems  simple  and  familiar  and  entirely  satisfactory 
when  we  say  them;  they  are  of  that  consoling  sort  which 
we  can  say  without  any  of  the  mental  pain  of  thinking 
•what  we  are  saying.  But  if  we  turn  our  attention  from 
the  phrases  we  use  to  the  facts  that  we  talk  about,  we 
shall  realise  at  least  that  there  are  a  good  many  facts  on 
the  other  side  and  examples  pointing  the  other  way.  For 
instance,  it  does  happen  occasionally,  from  time  to  time, 
that  people  talk  about  Ireland.  He  would  be  a  very  hi 
larious  humanitarian  who  should  maintain  that  Ireland 
and  England  have  been  more  and  more  assimilated  during 
the  last  hundred  years.  The  very  name  of  Sinn  Fein  is 
an  answer  to  it,  and  the  very  language  in  which  that 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      203 

phrase  is  spoken.  Curran  and  Shell  would  no  more  have 
dreamed  of  uttering  the  watchword  of  'Repeal'  in  Gaelic 
than  of  uttering  it  in  Zulu.  Grattan  coulcl  hardly  have 
brought  himself  to  believe  that  the  real  repeal  of  the 
Union  would  actually  be  signed  in  London  in  the  strange 
script  as  remote  as  the*  snaky  ornament  of  the  Celtic 
crosses.  It  would  have  seemed  like  Washington  signing 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  the  picture-writing 
of  the  Red  Indians.  Ireland  has  clearly  grown  away 
from  England;  and  her  language,  literature,  and  type  of 
patriotism  are  far  less  English  than  they  were.  On  the 
other  hand,  no  one  will  pretend  that  the  mass  of  mod 
ern  Englishmen  are  much  nearer  to  talking  Gaelic  or 
decorating  Celtic  crosses.  A  hundred  years  ago  it  was 
perfectly  natural  that  Byron  and  Moore  should  walk 
down  the  street  arm  in  arm.  Even  the  sight  of  Mr. 
Rudyard  Kipling  and  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  walking  down  the 
street  arm  in  arm  would  now  arouse  some  remark. 

I  could  give  any  number  of  other  examples  of  the  same 
new  estrangement  of  nations.  I  could  cite  the  obvi 
ous  facts  that  Norway  and  Sweden  parted  company  not 
very  long  ago,  that  Austria  and  Hungary  have  again  be 
come  separate  States.  I  could  point  to  the  mob  of  new 
nations  that  have  started  up  after  the  war;  to  the  fact 
that  the  great  empires  are  now  nearly  all  broken  up ;  that 
the  Russian  Empire  no  longer  directs  Poland,  that  the 
Austrian  Empire  no  longer  directs  Bohemia,  that  the 
Turkish  Empire  no  longer  directs  Palestine.  Sinn  Fein 
is  the  separatism  of  the  Irish.  Zionism  is  the  separatism 
of  the  Jews.  But  there  is  one  simple  and  sufficing  ex 
ample,  which  is  here  more  to  my  purpose,  and  is  at  least 
equally  sufficient  for  it.  And  that  is  the  deepening  na 
tional  difference  between  the  Americans  and  the  English. 


204  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Let  me  test  it  first  by  my  individual  experience  in  the 
matter  of  literature.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  read  a  book 
like  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-table  exactly  as  I  read 
another  book  like  The  Book  of  Snobs.  I  did  not  think 
of  it  as  an  American  book,  but  simply  as  a  book.  Its  wit 
and  idiom  were  like  those  of  the  English  literary  tra 
dition  ;  and  its  few  touches  of  local  colour  seemed  merely 
accidental,  like  those  of  an  Englishman  who  happened  to 
be  living  in  Switzerland  or  Sweden.  My  father  and  my 
father's  friends  were  rightly  enthusiastic  for  the 
book;  so  that  it  seemed  to  come  to  me  by  inheritance 
like  Gulliver's  Travels  or  Tristram  Shandy.  Its  language 
was  as  English  as  Ruskin,  and  a  great  deal  more  English 
than  Carlyle.  Well,  I  have  seen  in  later  years  an  almost 
equally  wide  and  well-merited  popularity  of  the  stories  of 
O.  Henry.  But  never  for  one  moment  could  I  or  any 
one  else  reading  them  forget  that  they  were  stories  by  an 
American  about  America.  The  very  first  fact  about 
them  is  that  they  are  told  with  an  American  accent,  that 
is,  in  the  unmistakable  tones  of  a  brilliant  and  fascinating 
foreigner.  And  the  same  is  true  of  every  other  recent 
work  of  which  the  fame  has  managed  to  cross  the  Atlan 
tic.  We  did  not  say  that  The  Spoon  River  Anthology 
was  a  new  book,  but  that  it  was  a  new  book  from  Amer 
ica.  It  was  exactly  as  if  a  remarkable  realistic  novel 
was  reported  from  Russia  or  Italy.  We  were  in  no 
danger  of  confusing  it  with  the  'Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard/'  People  in  England  who  heard  of  Main 
Street  were  not  likely  to  identify  it  with  a  High  Street; 
with  the  principal  thoroughfare  in  any  little  town  in  Berk 
shire  or  Buckinghamshire.  But  when  I  was  a  boy  I  prac 
tically  identified  the  boarding-house  of  the  Autocrat  with 
any  boarding-house  I  happened  to  know  in  Brompton  or 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      205 

Brighton.  No  doubt  there  were  differences;  but  the 
point  is  that  the  differences  did  not  pierce  the  conscious 
ness  or  prick  the  illusion.  I  said  to  myself,  'People  are 
like  this  in  boarding-houses,'  not  '  People  are  like  this  in 
Boston/ 

This  can  be  seen  even  in  the  simple  matter  of  language, 
especially  in  the  sense  of  slang.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
delightful  sketch  in-  the  causerie  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes;  the  character  of  the  young  man  called  John. 
He  is  a  very  modern  type  in  every  modern  country  who 
does  specialise  in  slang.  He  is  the  young  fellow  who  is 
something  in  the  City;  the*  everyday  young  man  of  the 
Gilbertian  song,  with  a  stick  and  a  pipe  and  a  half-bred 
black-and-tan.  In  every  country  he  is  at  once  witty  and 
commonplace.  In  every  country,  therefore,  he  tends 
both  to  the  vivacity  and  the  vulgarity  of  slang.  But 
when  he  appeared  in  Holmes's  book,  his  language  was  not 
very  different  from  what  it  would  have  been  in  a  Brighton 
instead  of  a  Boston  boarding-house;  or,  in  short,  if  the 
young  man  called  John  had  more  commonly  been  called 
*Arry.  If  he  had  appeared  in  a  modern  American  book, 
his  language  would  have  been  almost  literally  unintelli 
gible.  At  the  least  an  Englishman  would  have  to  read 
some  of  the  best  sentences  twice,  as  he  sometimes  has  to 
read  the  dizzy  and  involved  metaphors  of  O.  Henry. 
Nor  is  it  an  answer  that  this  depended  on  the  personali 
ties  of  the  particular  writers.  A  comparison  between 
the  real  journalism  of  the  time  of  Holmes  and  the  real 
journalism  of  the  time  of  Henry  reveals  the  same  thing. 
It  is  the  expansion  of  a  slight  difference  of  style  into  a 
luxuriant  difference  of  idiom;  and  the  process  continued 
indefinitely  would  certainly  produce  a  totally  different 
language.  After  a  few  centuries  .the  signatures  of 


206  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

American  ambassadors  would  look  as  fantastic  as  Gaelic, 
and  the  very  name  of  the  Republic  be  as  strange  as  Sinn 
Fein. 

It  is  true  that  there  has  been  on  the  surface  a  certain 
amount  of  give  and  take;  or  at  least,  as  far  as  the  Eng 
lish  are  concerned,  of  take  rather  than  give.  But  it  is 
true  that  it  was  once  all  the  other  way ;  and  indeed  the  one 
thing  is  something  like  a  ju.st  nemesis  of  the  other.  In 
deed,  the  story  of  the  reversal  is  somewhat  singular, 
when  we  come  to  think  of  it.  It  began  in  a  certain  at 
mosphere  and  spirit  of  certain  well-meaning  people  who 
talked  about  the  English-speaking  race;  and  were  ap 
parently  indifferent  to  how  the  English  was  spoken, 
whether  in  the  accent  of  a  Jamaican  negro  or  a  convict 
from  Botany  Bay.  It  was  their  logical  tendency  to  say 
that  Dante  was  a  Dago.  It  was  their  logical  punishment 
to  say  that  Disraeli  was  an  Englishman.  Now  there 
may  have  been  a  period  when  this  Anglo-American 
amalgamation  included  more  or  less  equal  elements  from 
England  and  America.  It  never  included  the  larger  ele 
ments,  or  the  more  valuable  elements  of  either.  But,  on 
the  whole,  I  think  it  true  to  say  that  it  was  not  an  allot 
ment  but  an  interchange  of  parts;  and  that  things  first 
went  all  one  way  and  then  all  the  other.  People  began 
by  telling  the  Americans  that  they  owed  all  their  past 
triumphs  to  England;  which  was  false.  They  ended  up 
by  telling  the  English  that  they  would  owe  all  their  future 
triumphs  to  America;  which  is  if  possible  still  more  false. 
Because  we  chose  to  forget  that  New  York  had  been 
New  Amsterdam,  we  are  now  in  danger  of  forgetting 
that  London  is  not  New  York.  Because  we  insisted  that 
Chicago  was  only  a  pious  imitation  of  Chiswick,  we  may 
yet  see  Chiswick  an  inferior  imitation  of  Chicago.  Our 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      207 

Anglo-Saxon  historians  attempted  that  conquest  in  which 
Howe  and  Burgoyne  had  failed,  and  with  infinitely  less 
justification  on  their  side.  They  attempted  the  great 
crime  of  the  Anglicisation  of  America.  They  have 
called  down  the  punishment  of  the  Americanisation  of 
England.  We  must  not  murmur;  but  it  is  a  heavy  pun 
ishment. 

It  may  lift  a  little  of  its  load,  however,  if  we  look  at 
it  more  closely;  we  shall  then  find  that  though  it  is  very 
much  on  top  of  us,  it  is  only  on  top.  In  that  sense  such 
Americanisation  as  there  is  is  very  superficial.  For  in 
stance,  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  American  slang 
picked  up  at  random ;  it  appears  in  certain  pushing  types 
of  journalism  and  drama.  But  we  may  easily  dwell  too 
much  on  this  tragedy;  of  people  who  have  never  spoken 
English  beginning  to  speak  American.  I  am  far  from 
suggesting  that  American,  like  any  other  foreign  lan 
guage,  may  not  frequently  contribute  to  the  common  cul 
ture  of  the  world  phrases  for  which  there  is  no  sub 
stitute  ;  there  are  French  phrases  so  used  in  England  and 
English  phrases  in  France.  The  word  'high-brow,'  for 
instance,  is  a  real  discovery  and  revelation,  a  new  and 
necessary  name  for  something  that  walked  nameless  but 
enormous  in  the  modern  world,  a  shaft  of  light  and  a 
stroke  of  lightning.  That  comes  from  America  and  be 
longs  to  the  world,  as  much  as  'The  Raven'  or  The  Scar 
let  Letter  or  the  novels  of  Henry  James  belong  to  the 
world.  In  fact,  I  can  imagine  Henry  James  originating 
it  in  the  throes  of  self-expression,  and  bringing  out  a 
word  like  'high-browed,'  with  a  sort  of  gentle  jerk,  at 
the  end  of  searching  sentences  which  groped  sensitively 
until  they  found  the  phrase.  But  most  of  the  American 
slang  that  is  borrowed  seems  to  be  borrowed  for  no  partic- 


208  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

<ular  reason.  It  either  has  no  point  or  the  point  is  lost  by 
translation  into  another  context  and  culture.  It  is  either 
something  which  does  not  need  any  grotesque  and  exag 
gerative  description,  or  of  which  there  already  exists  a 
grotesque  and  exaggerative  description  more  native  to 
our  tongue  and  soil.  For  instance,  I  cannot  see  that  the 
strong  and  simple  expression  'Now  it  is  for  you  to  pull 
the  police  magistrate's  nose'  is  in  any  way  strengthened 
by  saying,  'Now  it  is  up  to  you  to  pull  the  police  magis 
trate's  nose/  When  Tennyson  says  of  the  men  of  the 
Light  Brigade  'Theirs  but  to  do  arid  die,'  the  expression 
seems  to  me  perfectly  lucid.  'Up  to  them  to  do  and  die' 
would  alter  the  metre  without  especially  clarifying  the 
meaning.  This  is  an  example  of  ordinary  language  being 
quite  adequate;  but  there  is  a  further  difficulty  that  even 
wild  slang  comes  to  sound  like  ordinary  language.  Very 
often  the  English  have  already  as  humorous  and  fanciful 
idiom  of  their  own,  only  that  through  habit  it  has  lost 
its  humour.  When  Keats  wrote  the  line,  'What  pipes 
and  timbrels,  what  wild  ecstasy!'  I  am  willing  to  believe 
that  the  American  humorist  would  have  expressed  the 
same  sentiment  by  beginning  the  sentence  with  'Some 
pipe !'  When  that  was  first  said,  somewhere  in  the  wilds 
of  Colorado,  it  was  really  funny;  involving  a  powerful 
understatement  and  the  suggestion  of  a  mere  sample.  If 
a  spinster  has  informed  us  that  she  keeps  a  bird,  and  we 
find  it  is  an  ostrich,  there  will  be  considerable  point  in  the 
Colorado  satirist  saying  inquiringly,  'Some  bird?'  as  if  he 
were  offering  us  a  small  slice  of  a  small  plover.  But  if 
we  go  back  to  this  root  and  rationale  of  a  joke,  the  Eng 
lish  language  already  contains  quite  as  good  a  joke.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  say,  'Some  bird';  there  is  a  far  finer 
irony  in  the  old  expression,  'Something  like  a  bird.'  It 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      209 

suggests  that  the  speaker  sees  something  faintly  and 
strangely  birdlike  about  a  bird;  that  it  remotely  and  al 
most  irrationally  reminds  him  of  a  bird;  and  that  there  is 
about  ostrich  plumes  a  yard  long  something  like  the  faint 
and  delicate  traces  of  a  feather.  It  has  every  quality  of 
imaginative  irony,  except  that  nobody  even  imagines  it 
to  be  ironical.  All  that  happens  is  that  people  get  tired 
of  that  turn  of  phrase,  take  up  a  foreign  phrase  and  get 
tired  of  that,  without  realising  the  point  of  either.  All 
that  happens  is  that  a  number  of  weary  people  who  used 
to  say  'Something  like  a  bird,'  now  say,  'Some  bird/  with 
undiminished  weariness.  But  they  might  just  as  well 
use  dull  and  decent  English;  for  in  both  cases  they  are 
only  using  jocular  language  without  seeing  the  joke. 

There  is  indeed  a  considerable  trade  in  the  transplanta 
tion  of  these  American  jokes  to  England  just  now.  They 
generally  pine  and  die  in  our  climate,  or  they  are  dead 
before  their  arrival;  but  we  cannot  be  certain  that  they 
were  never  alive.  There  is  a  sort  of  unending  frieze  or 
scroll  of  decorative  designs  unrolled  ceaselessly  before 
the  British  public,  about  a  hen-pecked  husband,  which  is 
indistinguishable  to  the  eye  from  an  actual  self-repeat 
ing  pattern  like  that  of  the  Greek  key,  but  which  is  im 
ported  as  if  it  were  as  precious  and  irreplaceable  as  the 
Elgin  Marbles.  Advertisement  and  syndication  make 
mountains  out  of  the  most  funny  little  mole-hills;  but 
no  doubt  the  mole-hills  are  picturesque  enough  in  their 
own  landscape.  In  any  case  there  is  nothing  so  national 
as  humour;  and  many  things,  like  many  people,  can  be 
humorous  enough  when  they  are  at  home.  But  these 
American  jokes  are  boomed  as  solemnly  as  American 
religions ;  and  their  supporters  gravely  testify  that  they  are 
funny,  without  seeing  the  fun  of  it  for  a  moment.  This 


210  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

is  partly  perhaps  the  spirit  of  spontaneous  intitutional- 
ism  in  American  democracy,  breaking  out  in  the  wrong 
place.  They  make  humour  an  institution;  and  a  man 
will  be  set  to  tell  an  anecdote  as  if  to  play  the  violin.  But 
when  the  story  is  told  in  America  it  really  is  amusing; 
and  when  these  jokes  are  reprinted  in  England  they  are 
often  not  even  intelligible.  With  all  the  stupidity  of  the 
millionaire  and  the  monopolist,  the  enterprising  proprietor 
prints  jokes  in  England  which  are  necessarily  unintellig 
ible  to  nearly  every  English  person;  jokes  referring  to 
domestic  and  local  conditions  quite  peculiar  to  America. 
I  saw  one  of  these  narrative  caricatures  the  other  day  in 
which  the  whole  of  the  joke  (what  there  was  of  it)  turned 
on  the  astonishment  of  a  housewife  at  the  absurd  notion 
of  not  having  an  ice-box.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  nearly 
every  ordinary  American  housewife  possesses  an  ice-box. 
An  ordinary  English  housewife  would  no  more  expect 
to  possess  an  ice-box  than  to  possess  an  iceberg.  And 
it  would  be  about  as  sensible  to  tow  an  iceberg  to  an 
English  port  all  the  way  from  the  North  Pole,  as  to  trail 
that  one  pale  and  frigid  joke  to  Fleet  Street  all  the  way 
from  the  New  York  papers.  It  is  the  same  with  a  hun 
dred  other  advertisements  and  adaptions.  I  have 
already  confessed  that  I  took  a  considerable  delight  in 
the  dancing  illuminations  of  Broadway — in  Broadway, 
Everything  there  is  suitable  to  them,  the  vast  intermin 
able  thoroughfare,  the  toppling  houses,  the  dizzy  and  rest 
less  spirit  of  the  whole  city.  It  is  a  city  of  dissolving 
views,  and  one  may  almost  say  a  city  in  everlasting  dis 
solution.  But  I  do  not  especially  admire  a  burning  frag 
ment  of  Broadway  stuck  up  opposite  the  old  Georgian 
curve  of  Regent  Street.  I  would  as  soon  express  sym 
pathy  with  the  Republic  of  Switzerland  by  erecting  a  small 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      211 

Alp,  with  imitation  snow,  in  the  middle  of  St.  James's 
Park. 

But  all  this  commercial  copying  is  very  superficial; 
and  above  all,  it  never  copies  anything  that  is,  really  worth 
copying.  Nations  never  learn  anything  from  each  other 
in  this  way.  We  have  many  things  to  learn  from  Amer 
ica;  but  we  only  listen  to  those  Americans  who  have  still 
to  learn  them.  Thus,  for  instance,  we  do  not  import 
the  small  farm  but  only  the  big  shop.  In  other  words, 
wahear  nothing  of  the  democracy  of  the  Middle  West,  but 
everything  of  the  plutocracy  of  the  middleman,  who  is 
probably  as  unpopular  in  the  Middle  West  as  the  miller 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  If  Mr.  Elihu  K.  Pike  could  be 
transplanted  bodily  from  the  neighbourhood  of  his  home 
town  of  Marathon,  Neb.,  with  his  farm  and  his  frame- 
house  and  all  its  fittings,  and  they  could  be  set  down 
exactly  in  the  spot  now  occupied  by  Sel fridge's  (which 
could  be  easily  cleared  away  for  the  purpose),  I  think 
we  could  really  get  a  great  deal  of  good  by  watching  him, 
even  if  the  watching  were  inevitably  a  little  too  like 
watching  a  wild  beast  in  a  cage  or  an  insect  under  a  glass 
case.  Urban  crowds  could  collect  every  day  behind  a 
barrier  or  railing,  and  gaze  at  Mr.  Pike  pottering  about 
all  day  in  his  ancient  and  autochthonous  occupations. 
We  could  see  him  growing  Indian  corn  with  all  the  grav 
ity  of  an  Indian ;  though  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  Mrs. 
Pike  blessing  the  cornfield  in  the  manner  of  Minnehaha. 
As  I  have  said,  there  is  a  certain  lack  of  humane  myth 
and  mysticism  about  this  Puritan  peasantry.  But  we 
could  see  him  transforming  the  maize  into  pop-corn,  which 
is  a  very  pleasant  domestic  ritual  and  pastime,  and  is  the 
American  equivalent  of  the  glory  of  roasting  chestnuts. 
Above  all,  many  of  us  would  learn  for  the  first  time  that 


212  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

a  man  can  really  live  and  walk  about  upon  something  more 
productive  than  a  pavement ;  and  that  when  he  does  so  he 
can  really  be  a  free  man,  and  have  no  lord  but  the  law. 
Instead  of  that,  America  can  give  nothing  to  London  but 
those  multiple  modern  shops,  of  which  it  has  too  many 
already.  I  know  that  many  people  entertain  the  innocent 
illusion  that  big  shops  are  more  efficient  than  small  ones ; 
but  that  is  only  because  the  big  combinations  have  the 
monopoly  of  advertisement  as  well  as  trade.  The  big 
shop  is  not  in  the  least  remarkable  for  efficiency ;  it  is  only 
too  big  to  be  blamed  for  its  inefficiency.  It  is  secure  in  its 
reputation  for  always  sacking  the  wrong  man.  A  big 
shop,  considered  as  a  place  to  shop  in,  is  simply  a  village 
of  small  shops  roofed  in  to  keep  out  the  light  and  air; 
and  one  in  which  none  of  the  shopkeepers  are  really  re 
sponsible  for  their  shops.  If  any  one  has  any  doubts  on 
this  matter,  since  I  have  mentioned  it,  let  him  consider 
this  fact :  that  in  practice  we  never  do  apply  this  method 
of  commercial  combination  to  anything  that  matters  very 
much.  We  do  not  go  to  the  surgical  department  of  the 
Stores  to  have  a  portion  of  our  brain  removed  by  a  deli 
cate  operation;  and  then  pass  on  to  the  advocacy  depart 
ment  to  employ  one  or  any  of  its  barristers,  when  we  are 
in  temporary  danger  of  being  hanged.  We  go  to  men 
who  own  their  own  tools  and  are  responsible  for  the  use 
of  their  own  talents.  And  the  same  truth  applies  to  that 
other  modern  method  of  advertisement,  which  has  also 
so  largely  fallen  across  us  like  the  gigantic  shadow  of 
America.  Nations  do  not  arm  themselves  for  a  mortal 
struggle  by  remembering  which  sort  of  submarine  they 
have  seen  most  often  on  the  hoardings.  They  can  do  it 
about  something  like  soap,  precisely  because  a  nation  will 
not  perish  by  having  a  second-rate  sort  of  soap,  as  it 


IS  THE  ATLANTIC  NARROWING?      213 

might  by  having  a  second-rate  sort  of  submarine.  A 
nation  may  indeed  perish  slowly  by  having  a  second- 
rate  sort  of  food  or  drink  or  medicine;  but  that  is  another 
and  much  longer  story,  and  the  story  is  not  ended  yet. 
But  nobody  wins  a  great  battle  at  a  great  crisis  because 
somebody  has  told  him  that  Cadgerboy's  Cavalry  Is  the 
Besit.  It  may  be  that  commercial  enterprise  will  eventu 
ally  cover  these  fields  also,  and  advertisement-agents  will 
provide  the  instruments  of  the  surgeon  and  the  weapons 
of  the  soldier.  When  that  happns,  the  armies  will  be  de 
feated  and  the  patients  will  die.  But  though  we  modern 
people  are  indeed  patients,  in  the  sense  of  being  merely 
receptive  and  accepting  things  with  astonishing  patience, 
we  are  not  dead  yet;  and  we  have  lingering  gleams  of 
sanity. 

For  the  best  things  do  not  travel.  As  I  appear  here  as 
a  traveller,  I  may  say  with  all  modesty  that  the  best  people 
do  not  travel  either.  Both  in  England  and  America  the 
normal  people  are  the  national  people ;  and  I  repeat  that  I 
think  they  are  growing  more  and  more  national.  I  do 
not  think  the  abyss  is  being  bridged  by  cosmopolitan 
theories;  and  I  am  sure  I  do  not  want  it  bridged  by  all 
this  slang  journalism  and  blatant  advertisement.  I  have 
called  all  that  commercial  publicity  the  gigantic  shadow 
of  America.  It  may  be  the  shadow  of  America,  but  it 
is  not  the  light  of  America.  The  light  lies  far  beyond, 
a  level  light  upon  the  lands  of  sunset,  where  it  shines  upon 
wide  places  full  of  a  very  simple  and  a  very  happy  people ; 
and  those  who  would  see  it  must  seek  for  it. 


LINCOLN    AND    LOST    CAUSES 


I 


T  has  already  been  remarked  here  that  the  English 
know  a  great  deal  about  past  American  literature, 
M     but  nothing  about  past  American  history.     They 
do  not  know  either,  of  course,  as  well  as  they  know  the 
present  American  advertising,  which  is  the  least  import 
ant  of  the  three.     But  it  is  worth  noting  once  more  how 
little  they  know  of  the  history,  and  how  illogically  that 
little  is  chosen.     They  have  heard,  no  doubt,  of  the  fame 
and  the  greatness  of  Henry  Clay.     He  is  a  cigar.     But 
it  would  be  unwise  to  cross-examine  any  Englishman, 
who  may  be  consuming  that  luxury  at  the  moment,  about 
the  Missouri  Compromise  or  the  controversies  with  An 
drew  Jackson.     And  just  as  the  statesman  of  Kentucky 
is  a  cigar,  so  the  state  of  Virginia  is  a  cigarette.     But 
there  is  perhaps  one  exception,  or  half -exception,  to  this 
simple  plan.     It  would  perhaps  be  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that   Plymouth  Rock  is  a  chicken.     Any   English 
person  keeping  chickens,  and  chiefly  interested  in  Ply 
mouth  Rocks  considered  as  chickens,  would  nevertheless 
have  a  hazy  sensation  of  having  seen  the  word  somewhere 
before.     He  would  feel  subconsciously  that  the  Plymouth 
Rock  had  not  always  been  a  chicken.     Indeed,  the  name 
connotes  something  not  only  solid  but  antiquated;  and 
is  not  therefore  a  very  tactful  name  for  a  chicken.     There- 
would  rise  up  before  him  something  memorable  in  the 
haze  that  he  calls  his  history ;  and  he  would  see  the  history 
books  of  his  boyhood  and  old  engravings  of  men  in  stee 
ple-crowned  hats  struggling  with  sea-waves  or  Red  In- 

214 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES          215 

dians.  The  whole  thing  would  suddenly  become  clear  to 
him  if  (by  a  simple  reform)  the  chickens  were  called 
Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Then  he  would  remember  all  about  it.     The  Pilgrim 
Fathers  were  champions  of  religious  liberty;  and  they 
discovered  America.     It  is  true  that  he  has  also  heard 
of  a  man  called  Christopher  Columbus;  but  that  was  in 
connection  with  an  egg.     He  has  also  heard  of  some 
body  known  as  Sir  Walter  Raleigh ;  and  though  his  prin 
cipal  possession  was  a  cloak,  it  is  also  true  that  he  had  a 
potato,  not  to  mention  a  pipe  of  tobacco.     Can  it  be  pos 
sible  that  he  brought  it  from  Virginia,  where  the  cigar 
ettes  come  from?     Gradually  the  memories  will  come 
back  and  fit  themselves  together  for  the  average  hen-wife 
who  learnt  history  at  the  English  elementary  schools,  and 
who  has  now  something  better  to  do.     Even  when  the 
narrative  becomes  consecutive,  it  will  not  necessarily  be 
come  correct.     It  is  not  strictly  true  to  say  that  the  Pil 
grim  Fathers  discovered  America.     But  it  is  quite  as 
true  as  saying  that  they  were  champions  of   religious 
liberty.     If  we  said  that  they  were  martyrs  who  would 
have  died  heroically  in  torments  rather  than  tolerate  any 
religious  liberty,  we  should  be  talking  something  like  sense 
about  them,  and  telling  the  real  truth  that  is  their  due. 
The  whole  Puritan  movement,  from  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  to  the  last  stand  of  the  last  Stuarts,  was 
a   struggle   against  religious   toleration,   or   what   they 
would  have  called  religious  indifference.     The  first  re 
ligious  equality  on  earth  was  established  by  a  Catholic 
cavalier  in  Maryland.     Now  there  is  nothing  in  this  to 
diminish  any  dignity  that  belongs  to  any  real  virtues  and 
virilities  in  the  Pilgrim  Fathers;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
rather  to  the  credit  of  their  consistency  and  conviction. 


216  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  note  of  their  whole  experi 
ment  in  New  England  was  intolerance,  and  even  inquisi 
tion.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  New  England  was  then 
only  the  newest  and  not  the  oldest  of  these  colonial  ex 
periments.  At  least  two  cavaliers  had  been  in  the  field 
before  any  Puritans.  And  they  had  carried  with  them 
much  more  of  the  atmosphere  and  nature  of  the  normal 
Englishman  than  any  Puritan  could  possibly  carry. 
They  had  established  it  especially  in  Virginia,  which  had 
been  founded  by  a  great  Elizabethan  and  named  after 
the  great  Elizabeth.  Before  there  was  any  New  England 
in  the  North,  there  was  something  very  like  Old  Eng 
land  in  the  South.  Relatively  speaking,  there  is  still. 
Whenever  the  anniversary  of  the  Mayflower  comes 
round,  there  is  a  chorus  of  Anglo- American  congratula 
tion  and  comradeship,  as  if  this  at  least  were  a  matter  on 
which  all  can  agree.  But  I  knew  enough  about  America, 
even  before  I  went  there,  to  know  that  there  are  a  good 
many  people  there  at  any  rate  who  do  not  agree  with  it. 
Long  ago  I  wrote  a  protest  in  which  I  asked  why  English 
men  had  forgotten  the  great  state  of  Virginia,  the  first 
in  foundation  and  long  the  first  in  leadership ;  and  why  a 
few  crabbed  Nonconformists  should  have  the  right  to 
erase  a  record  that  begins  with  Raleigh  and  ends  with 
Lee,  and  incidentally  includes  Washington.  The  great 
state  of  Virginia  was  the  backbone  of  America  until  it 
was  broken  in  the  Civil  War.  From  Virginia  came  the 
first  great  Presidents  and  most  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
"Republic.  Its  adherence  to  the  Southern  side  in  the  war 
was  what  made  it  a  great  wrar,  and  for  a  long  time  a 
doubtful  war.  And  in  the  leader  of  the  Southern  armies 
it  produced  what  is  perhaps  the  one  modern  figure  that 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES          217 

may  come  to  shine  like  St.  Louis  in  the  lost  battle,  or 
Hector  dying  before  holy  Troy. 

Again,  it  is  characteristic  that  while  the  modern  English 
know  nothing  about  Lee  they  do  know  something  about 
Lincoln;  and  nearly  all  that  they  know  is  wrong.  They 
know  nothing  of  his  Southern  connections,  nothing  of  his 
considerable  Southern  sympathy,  nothing  of  the  meaning 
of  his  moderation  in  face  of  the  problem  of  slavery,  now 
lightly  treated  as  self-evident.  Above  all,  they  know 
nothing  -about  the  respect  in  which  Lincoln  was  quite  un- 
English,  was  indeed  the  very  reverse  of  English;  and 
can  be  understood  better  if  we*  think  of  him  as  a  French 
man,  since  it  seems  so  hard  for  some  of  us  to  believe 
that  he  was  an  American.  I  mean  his  lust  for  logic  for 
its  own  sake,  and  the  way  he  kept  mathematical  truths 
in  his  mind  like  the  fixed  stars.  He  was  so  far  from 
being  a  merely  practical  man,  impatient  of  academic  ab 
stractions,  that  he  reviewed  and  revelled  in  academic 
abstractions,  even  while  he  could  not  apply  them  to  prac 
tical  life.  He  loved  to  repeat  that  slavery  was  intoler 
able  while  he  tolerated  it,  and  to  prove  ftiat  something 
ought  to  be  done  while  it  was  impossible  to  do  it.  This 
was  probably  very  bewildering  to  his  brother-politicians; 
for  politicians  always  whitewash  what  they  do  not  de 
stroy.  But  for  all  that  this  inconsistency  beat  the  politi 
cians  at  their  own  game,  and  this  abstracted  logic  proved 
the  most  practical  of  all.  For  when  the  chance  did  come 
to  do  something,  there  was  no  doubt  about  the  thing  to  be 
done.  The  thunderbolt  fell  from  the  clear  heights  of 
heaven ;  it  had  not  been  tossed  about  and  lost  like  a  com 
mon  missile  in  the  market-place.  The  matter  is  worth 
mentioning,  because  it  has  a  moral  for  a  much  larger  mod 
ern  question.  A  wise  man's  attiude  towards  industrial 


218  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

capitalism  will  be  very  like  Lincoln's  attitude  towards 
slavery.  That  is,  he  will  manage  to  endure  capitalism; 
but  he  will  not  endure  a  defence  of.  capitalism.  He 
will  recognise  the  value,  not  only  of  knowing  what  he  is 
doing,  but  of  knowing  what  he  would  like  to  do.  He  will 
recognise  the  importance  of  having  a  thing  clearly  labelled 
in  his  own  mind  as  bad,  long  before  the  opportunity  comes 
to  abolish  it.  He  may  recognise  the  risk  of  even  worse 
things  in  immediate  abolition,  as  Lincoln  did  in  abolition 
ism.  He  will  not  call  all  business  men  brutes,  any  more 
thari  Lincoln  would  call  all  planters  demons ;  because  he 
knows  they  are  not.  He  will  regard  many  alternatives  to 
capitalism  as  crude  and  inhuman,  as  Lincoln  regarded 
John  Brown's  raid ;  because  they  are.  But  he  will  clear 
his  mind  from  cant  about  capitalism;  he  will  have  no 
doubt  of  what  is  the  truth  about  Trusts  and  Trade  Com 
bines  and  the  concentration  of.  capital;  and  it  is  the 
truth  that  they  endure  under  one  of  the.  ironic  silences  of 
heaven,  over  the  pageants  and  the  passing  triumphs  of 
hell. 

But  the  name  of  Lincoln  has  a  more  immediate  refer 
ence  to  the  international  matters  I  am  considering  here. 
His  name  has  been  much  invoked  by  English  politicians 
and  journalists  in  connection  with  the  quarrel  with  Ire 
land.  And  if  we  study  the  matter,  we  shall  hardly  ad 
mire  the  tact  and  sagacity  of  those  journalists  and  politi 
cians. 

History  is  an  eternal  tangle  of  cross-purposes ;  and  we 
could  not  take  a  clearer  case,  or  rather  a  more  compli 
cated  case,  of  such  a  tangle,  than  the  facts  lying  behind  a 
political  parallel  recently  mentioned  by  many  politicians, 
I  mean  the  parallel  between  the  movement  for  Irish  inde 
pendence  and  the  attempted  secession  of  the  Southern 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES          219 

Confederacy  in  America.  Superficially  any  one  might 
say  that  the  comparison  is  natural  enough ;  and  that  there 
is  much  in  common  between  the  quarrel  of  the  North  and 
South  in  Ireland  and  the  quarrel  of  the  North  and  South 
in  America.  In  both  cases  the  South  was  on  the  whole 
agricultural,  the  North  on  the  whole  industrial.  True, 
the  parallel  exaggerates  the  position  of  Belfast;  to  com 
plete  it  we  must  suppose  the  whole  Federal  system  to  have 
consisted  of  Pittsburg.  In  both  the  side  that  was  more 
successful  was  felt  by  many  to  be  less  attractive.  In  both 
the  same  political  terms  were  used,  such  as  the  term 
'Union'  and  'Unionism/  An  ordinary  Englishman  comes 
to  America,  knowing  these  main  lines  of  American 
history,  and  knowing  that  the  Americans  know  the 
similar  main  lines  of  Irish  history.  He  knows  that  there 
are  strong  champions  of  Ireland  in  America ;  possibly  he 
also  knows  that  there  are  very  genuine  champions  of 
England  in  America.  By  every  possible  historical  anal 
ogy,  he  would  naturally  expect  to  find  the  pro-Irish  in 
the  South  and  the  pro-English  in  the  North.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  finds  almost  exactly  the  opposite.  He  finds 
Boston  governed  by  Irishmen,  and  Nashville  containing 
people  more  pro-English  than  Englishmen.  He  finds 
Virginians  not  only  of  British  blood,  like  George 
Washington,  but  of  British  opinions  almost  worthy  of 
George  the  Third. 

But  I  do  not  say  this,  as  will  be  seen  in  a  moment,  as 
a  criticism  of  the  comparative  toryism  of  the  South.  I 
say  it  as  a  criticism  of  the  superlative  stupidity  of  English 
propaganda.  In  another  chapter,  I  remark  on  the  need 
for  a  new  sort  of  English  propaganda ;  a  propaganda  that 
should  be  really  English  and  have  some  remote  reference 
to  England.  Now  if  it  were  a  matter  of  making  foreign- 


220  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

ers  feel  the  real  humours  and  humanities  of  England, 
there  are  no  Americans  so  able  or  willing  to  do  it  as  the 
Americans  of  the  Southern  States.  As  I  have  already 
hinted,  some  of  them  are  so  loyal  to  the  English  human 
ities,  that  they  think  it  their  duty  to  defend  even  the 
English  inhumanities.  New  England  is  turning  into 
New  Ireland.  But  Old  England  can  still  be  faintly 
traced  in  Old  Dixie.  It  contains  some  of  the  best  things 
that  England  herself  has  had,  and  therefore  (of  course) 
the  things  that  England  herself  has  lost,  or  is  trying  to 
lose.  But  above  all,  as  I  have  said,  there  are  people  in 
these  places  whose  historic  memories  and  family  tradi 
tions  really  hold  them  to  us,  not  by  alliance  but  by  affec 
tion.  Indeed,  they  have  the  affection  in  spite  of  the  alli 
ance.  They  love  us  in  spite  of  our  compliments  and 
courtesies  and  hands  across  the  sea ;  all  our  ambassadorial 
salutations  and  speeches  cannot  kill  their  love.  They 
manage  even  to  respect  us  in  spite  of  the  shady  Jew 
stockbrokers  we  send  them  as  English  envoys,  or  the 
'efficient'  men,  who  are  sent  out  to  be  tactful  with  foreign 
ers  because  they  have  been  too  tactless  with  trades 
unionists.  This  type  of  traditional  American,  North  or 
South,  really  has  some  traditions  connecting  him  with 
England ;  and  though  he  is  now  in  a  very  small  minority, 
I  cannot  imagine  why  England  should  wish  to  make  it 
smaller.  England  once  sympathised  with  the  South. 
The  South  still  sympathises  with  England.  It  would 
seem  that  the  South,  or  some  elements  in  the  South,  had 
rather  the  advantage  of  us  in  political  firmness  and  fidel 
ity;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  fidelity  will  stand  every 
shock.  And  at  this  moment,  and  in  this  matter,  of  all 
things  in  the  world,  our  political  propagandists  must  try 
to  bolster  British  Imperialism  up,  by  kicking  Southern 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES         221 

Secession  when  it  is  down.  The  English  politicians 
eagerly  point  out  that  we  shall  be  justified  in  crushing 
Ireland  exactly  as  Sumner  and  Stevens  crushed  the  most 
English  part  of  America.  It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to 
them  that  this  comparison  between  the  Unionist  triumph 
in  America  and  a  Unionist  triumph  in  Britain  is  rather 
hard  upon  our  particular  sympathisers,  who  did  not 
triumph.  When  England  exults  in  Lincoln's  victory 
over  his  foes,  she  is  exulting  in  his  victory  over  her  own 
friends.  If  her  diplomacy  continues  as  delicate  and 
chivalrous  as  it  is  at  present,  they  may  soon  be  her  only 
friends.  England  will  be  defending  herself  at  the  ex 
pense  of  her  only  defenders.  But  however  this  may  be, 
it  is  as  well  to  bear  witness  to  some  of  the  elements  of 
my  o^wn  experience;  and  I  can  answer  for  it,  at  least, 
that  there  are  some  people  in  the  South  who  will  not  be 
pleased  at  being  swept  into  the  rubbish-heap  of  history 
as  rebels  and  ruffians;  and  who  will  not,  I  regret  to  say, 
by  any  means  enjoy  even  being  classed  with  Fenians 
and  Sinn  Feiners. 

Now  touching  the  actual  comparison  between  the  con 
quest  of  the  Confederacy  and  the  conquest  of  Ireland, 
there  are,  of  course,  a  good  many  things  to  be  said  which 
politicians  cannot  be  expected  to  understand.  Strange 
to  say,  it  is  not  certain  that  a  lost  cause  was  never  worth 
winning;  and  it  would  be  easy  to  argue  that  the  world 
lost  very  much  indeed  when  that  particular  cause  was 
lost.  These  are  not  days  in  which  it  is  exactly  obvious 
that  an  agricultural  society  was  more  dangerous  than 
an  industrial  one.  And  even  Southern  slavery  had  this 
one  moral  merit,  that  it  was  decadent;  it  has  this  one 
historic  advantage,  that  it  is  dead.  The  Northern  slav 
ery,  industrial  slavery,  or  what  is  called  wage  slavery, 


222  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

is  not  decaying  but  increasing;  and  the  end  o-f  it  is  not 
yet.  But  in  any  case,  it  would  be  well  for  us  to  realise 
that  the  reproach  of  resembling  the  Confederacy  does  not 
ring  in  all  ears  as  an  unanswerable  condemnation.  It  is 
scarcely  a  self-evident  or  sufficient  argument,  to  some 
hearers,  even  to  prove  that  the  English  are  as  delicate 
and  philanthropic  as  Sherman,  still  less  that  the  Irish  are 
as  criminal  and  lawless  as  Lee.  Nor  will  it  soothe  every 
single  soul  on  the  American  continent  to  say  that  the 
English  victory  in  Ireland  will  be  followed  by  a  recon 
struction,  like  the  reconstruction  exhibited  in  the  film 
called  'The  Birth  of  a  Nation/  And,  indeed,  there  is  a 
further  inference  from  that  fine  panorama  of  the  exploits 
of  the  Ku-Klux-Klan.  It  would  be  easy,  as  I  say,  to 
turn  the  argument  entirely  in  favour  of  the  Confederacy. 
It  would  be  easy  to  draw  the  moral,  not  that  the  Southern 
Irish  are  as  wrong  as  the  Southern  States,  but  that  the 
Southern  States  were  as  right  as  the  Southern  Irish. 
But  upon  the  whole,  I  do  not  incline  to  accept  the  parallel 
in  that  sense  any  more  than  in  the  opposite  sense.  For 
reasons  I  have  already  given  elsewhere,  I  do  believe  that 
in  the  main  Abraham  Lincoln  was  right.  But  right  in 
what? 

If  Lincoln  was  right,  he  was  right  in  guessing  that 
there  was  not  really  a  Northern  nation  and  a  Southern 
nation,  but  only  one  American  nation.  And  if  he  has 
been  proved  right,  he  has  been  proved  right  by  the  fact 
that  men  in  the  South,  as  well  as  the  North,  do  now  feel 
a  patriotism  for  that  American  nation.  His  wisdom, 
if  it  really  was  wisdom,  was  justified  not  by  his  oppo 
nents  being  conquered,  but  by  their  being  converted. 
Now,  if  the  English  politicians  must  insist  on  this  paral 
lel,  they  ought  to  see  that  the  parallel  is  fatal  to  them- 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES          223 

selves.  The  very  test  which  proved  Lincoln  right  has 
proved  them  wrong.  The  very  judgment  which  may 
have  justified  him  quite  unquestionably  condemns  them. 
We  have  again  and  again  conquered  Ireland,  and  have 
never  come  an  inch  nearer  to  converting  Ireland.  We 
have  had  not  one  Gettysburg,  but  twenty  Gettysburgs; 
but  we  have  had  no  Union.  And  that  is  where,  as  I 
have  remarked,  it  is  relevant  to  remember  that  flying 
fantastic  vision  on  the  films  that  told  so  many  people 
what  no  histories  have  told  them.  I  occasionally  heard 
in  America  rumours  of  the  local  reappearance  of  the 
Ku-Klux-Klan ;  but  the  smallness  and  mildness  of  the 
manifestation,  as  compared  with  the  old  Southern  or 
the  new  Irish  case,  is  alone  a  sufficient  example  of  the 
exception  that  proves  the  rule.  To  approximate  to  any 
resemblance  to  recent  Irish  events,  we  must  imagine  the 
Ku-Klux-Klan  riding  again  in  more  than  the  terrors  of 
that  vision,  wild  as  the  wind,  white  as  the  moon,  terrible 
as  an  army  with  banners.  If  there  were  really  such  a  re 
vival  of  the  Southern  action,  there  would  equally  be  a 
revival  of  the  Southern  argument.  It  would  be  clear 
that  Lee  was  right  and  Lincoln  was  wrong;  that  the 
Southern  States  were  national  and  were  as  indestructible 
as  nations.  If  the  South  were  as  rebellious  as  Ireland, 
the  North  would  be  as  wrong  as  England. 

But  I  desire  a  new  English  diplomacy  that  will  ex 
hibit,  not  the  things  in  which  England  is  wrong  but  the 
things  in  which  England  19  right.  And  England  is 
right  in  England,  just  as  she  is  wrong  in  Ireland;  and 
it  is  exactly  that  Tightness  of  a  real  nation  in  itself  that 
it  is  at  once  most  difficult  and  most  desirable  to  explain 
to  foreigners.  Now  the  Irishman,  and  to  some  extent 
the  American,  has  remained  alien  to  England,  largely 


224  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

because  he  does  not  truly  realise  that  the  Englishman 
loves  England,  still  less  can  he  really  imagine  why  the 
Englishman  loves  England.  That  is  why  I  insist  on  the 
stupidity  of  ignoring  and  insulting  the  opinions  of  those 
few  Virginians  and  other  Southerners  who  really  have 
some  inherited  notion  of  why  Englishmen  love  England; 
and  even  love  it  in  something  of  the  same  fashion  them 
selves.  Politicians  who  do  not  know  the  English  spirit 
when  they  see  it  at  home,  cannot  of  course  be  expected 
to  recognise  it  abroad.  Publicists  are  eloquently  prais 
ing  Abraham  Lincoln,  for  all  the  wrong  reasons;  but 
fundamentally  for  that  worst  and  vilest  of  all  reasons 
— that  he  succeeded.  None  of  them  seems  to  have  the 
least  notion  of  how  to  look  for  England  in  England ;  and 
they  would  see  something  fantastic  in  the  figure  of  a 
traveller  who  found  it  elsewhere,  or  anywhere  but  in  New 
England.  And  it  is  well,  perhaps,  that  they  have  not 
yet  found  England  where  it  is  hidden  in  England;  for  if 
they  found  it,  they  would  kill  it. 

All  I  am  concerned  to  consider  here  is  the  inevitable 
failure  of  this  sort  of  Anglo-American  propaganda  to 
create  a  friendship.  To  praise  Lincoln  as  an  English 
man  is  about  as  appropriate  as  if  we  were  praising 
Lincoln  as  an  English  town.  We  {are  talking  about 
something  totally  different.  And  indeed  the  whole  con 
versation  is  rather  like  some  such  cross-purposes  about 
some  such  word  as  'Lincoln';  in  which  one  party  should 
be  talking  about  the  President  and  the  other  about  the 
cathedral.  It  is  like  some  wild  bewilderment  in  a  farce, 
with  one  man  wondering  how  a  President  could  have  a 
church-spire,  and  the  other  wondering  how  a  church 
could  have  a  chin-beard.  And  the  moral  is  the  moral  on 
which  I  would  insist  everywhere  in  this  book;  that  the 


LINCOLN  AND  LOST  CAUSES          225 

remedy  is  to  be  found  in  disentangling  the  two  and  not 
in  entangling  them  further.  You  could  not  produce  a 
democrat  of  the  logical  type  of  Lincoln  merely  out  of  the 
moral  materials  that  now  make  up  an  English  cathedral 
town,  like  that  on  which  Old  Tom  of  Lincoln  looks 
down.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  certain  that  a 
hundred  Abraham  Lincolns,  working  for  a  hundred 
years,  could  not  build  Lincoln  Cathedral.  And  the 
farcical  allegory  of  an  attempt  to  make  Old  Tom  and  Old 
Abe  embrace  to  the  glory  of  the  illogical  Anglo-Saxon 
language  is  but  a  symbol  of  something  that  is  always 
being  attempted,  and  always  attempted  in  vain.  It  is 
not  by  mutual  imitation  that  the  understanding  can  come. 
It  is  not  by  erecting  New  York  sky-scrapers  in  London 
that  New  York  can  learn  the  sacred  significance  of  the 
towers  of  Lincoln.  It  is  not  by  English  dukes  import 
ing  the  daughters  of  American  millionaires  that  England 
can  get  any  glimpse  of  the  democratic  dignity  of  Ameri 
can  men.  I  have  the  best  of  all  reasons  for  knowing 
that  a  stranger  can  be  welcomed  in  America;  and  just 
as  he  is  courteously  treated  in  the  country  as  a  stranger, 
so  he  should  always  be  careful  to  treat  it  as  a  strange 
land.  That  sort  of  imaginative  respect,  as  for  something 
different  and  even  distant,  is  the  only  beginning  of  any 
attachment  between  patriotic  peoples.  The  English  trav 
eller  may  carry  with  him  at  least  one  word  of  his  own 
great  language  and  literature ;  and  whenever  he  is  inclined 
to  say  of  anything  'This  is  passing  strange/  he  may 
remember  that  it  was  no  inconsiderable  Englishman  who 
appended  to  it  the  answer,  'And  therefore  as  a  stranger 
give  it  welcome.' 


WELLS   AND  THE   WORLD   STATE 

THERE  was  recently  a  highly  distinguished  gather 
ing  to  celebrate  the  past,  present,  and  especially 
future  triumphs  of  aviation.  Some  of  the  most 
brilliant  men  of  the  age,  such  as  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  and 
Mr.  J.  L.  Garvin,  made  interesting  and  important 
speeches,  and  many  scientific  aviators  luminously  dis 
cussed  the  new  science.  Among  their  graceful  felici 
tations  and  grave  and  quiet  analyses  a  word  was  said,  or 
a  note  was  struck,  which  I  myself  can  never  hear,  even 
in  the  most  harmless  after-dinner  speech,  without  an  im 
pulse  to  leap  up  and  yell,  and  smash  the  decanters  and 
wreck  the  dinner-table. 

Long  ago,  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  heard  it  with  fury ;  and 
never  since  have  I  been  able  to  understand  any  free  man 
hearing  it  without  fury.  I  heard  it  when  Bloch,  and  the 
old  prophets  of  pacifism  by  panic,  preached  that  war 
would  become  too  horrible  for  patriots  to  endure.  It 
sounded  to  me  like  saying  that  an  instrument  of  torture 
was  being  prepared  by  my  dentist,  that  would  finally 
cure  me  of  loving  my  dog.  And  I  felt  it  again  when  all 
these  wise  and  well-meaning  persons  began  to  talk  about 
the  inevitable  effect  of  aviation  in  bridging  the  Atlantic, 
and  establishing  alliance  and  affection  between  England 
and  America. 

I  resent  the  suggestion  that  a  machine  can  make  me 
bad.  But  I  resent  quite  equally  the  suggestion  that  a 
machine  can  make  me  good.  It  might  be  the  unfortunate 
fact  that  a  coolness  had  arisen  between  myself  and  Mr. 

226 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      227 

Fitzarlington  Blenkinsop,  inhabiting  the  suburban  villa 
and  garden  next  to  mine ;  and  I  might  even  be  largely  to 
blame  for  it.  But  if  somebody  told  me  that  a  new  kind 
of  lawn-mower  had  just  been  invented,  of  so  cunning  a 
structure  that  I  should  be  forced  to  become  a  bosom- 
friend  of  Mr.  Blenkinsop  whether  I  liked  it  or  not,  I 
should  be  very  much  annoyed,  I  should  be  moved  to  say 
that  if  that  was  the  only  way  of  cutting  my  grass  I 
would  not  cut  my  grass,  but  continue  to  cut  my  neighbour. 
Or  suppose  the  difference  were  even  less  defensible; 
suppose  a  man  had  suffered  from  a  trifling  shindy  with 
his  wife.  And  suppose  somebody  told  him  that  the 
introduction  of  an  entirely  new  vacuum-cleaner  would 
compel  him  to  a  reluctant  reconciliation  with  his  wife. 
It  would  be  found,  I  fancy,  that  human  nature  abhors 
that  vacuum.  Reasonably  spirited  human  beings  will 
not  be  ordered  about  by  bicycles  and  sewing-machines; 
and  a  healthy  man  will  not  be  made  good,  let  alone  bad, 
by  the  things  he  has  himself  made.  I  have  occasionally 
dictated  to  a  typewriter,  but  I  will  not  be  dictated  to  by  a 
typewriter,  even  of  the  newest  and  most  complicated 
mechanism;  nor  have  I  ever  met  a  typewriter,  however 
complex,  which  attempted  such  a  tyranny. 

Yet  this  and  nothing  else  is  what  is  implied  in  all  such 
talk  of  the  aeroplane  annihilating  distinctions  as  well  as 
distances ;  and  an  international  aviation  abolishing  nation 
alities.  This  and  nothing  else  was  really  implied  in  one 
speaker's  prediction  that  such  aviation  will  almost  neces 
sitate  an  Anglo-American  friendship.  Incidentally,  I 
may  remark,  it  is  not  a  true  suggestion  even  in  the  prac 
tical  and  materialistic  sense ;  and  the  speaker's  phrase  re 
futed  the  speaker's  argument.  He  said  that  international 
relations  must  be  more  friendly  when  men  can  get  from 


228  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

England  to  America  in  a  day.  Well,  men  can  already 
get  from  England  to  Germany  in  a  day;  and  the  result 
was  a  mutual  invitation  of  which  the  formalities  lasted 
for  five  years.  Men  could  get  from  the  coast  of  England 
to  the  coast  of  France  very  quickly,  through  nearly  all  the 
ages  during  which  those  two  coasts  were  bristling  with 
arms  against  each  other.  They  could  get  there  very 
quickly  when  Nelson  went  down  by  that  Burford  Inn  to 
embark  for  Trafalgar;  they  could  get  there  very  quickly 
when  Napoleon  sat  in  his  tent  in  that  camp  at  Boulogne 
that  filled  England  writh  alarums  of  invasion.  Are  these 
the  amiable  and  pacific  relations  which  will  unite  England 
and  America,  when  Englishmen  can  get  to  America  in  a 
day?  The  shortening  of  the  distance  seems  quite  as 
likely,  so  far  as  that  argument  goes,  to  facilitate  that  end 
less  guerilla  warfare  which  raged  across  the  narrow  seas 
in  the  Middle  Ages;  when  French  invaders  carried  away 
the  bells  of  Rye,  and  the  men  of  those  flats  of  East  Sus 
sex  gloriously  pursued  and  recovered  them.  I  do  not 
know  whether  American  privateers,  landing  at  Liverpool, 
would  carry  away  a  few  of  the  more  elegant  factory- 
chimneys  as  a  substitute  for  the  superstitious  symbols  of 
the  past.  I  know  not  if  the  English,  on  ripe  reflection, 
would  essay  with  any  enthusiasm  to  get  them  back.  But 
anyhow  it  is  anything  but  self-evident  that  people  cannot 
fight  each  other  because  they  are  near  to  each  other;  and 
if  it  were  true,  there  would  never  have  been  any  such 
thing  as  border  warfare  in  the  world.  As  a  fact,  border 
warfare  has  often  been  the  one  sort  of  warfare  which  it 
was  most  difficult  to  bring  under  control.  And  our  own 
traditional  position  in  face  of  this  new  logic  is  somewhat 
disconcerting.  We  have  always  supposed  ourselves  safer 
because  we  were  insular  and  therefore  isolated.  We 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      229 

have  been  congratulating  ourselves  for  centuries  on  hav 
ing  enjoyed  peace  because  we  were  cut  off  from  our 
neighbours.  And  now  they  are  telling  us  that  we  shall 
only  enjoy  peace  when  we  are  joined  up  with  our  neigh 
bours.  We  have  pitied  the  poor  nations  with  frontiers, 
because  a  frontier  only  produces  fighting;  and  now  we 
are  trusting  to  a  frontier  as  the  only  thing  that  will  pro 
duce  friendship.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  for  a  far 
deeper  and  more  spiritual  reason,  a  frontier  will  not  pro 
duce  friendship.  Only  friendliness  produces  friendship. 
And  we  must  look  far  deeper  into  the  soul  of  man  for  the 
thing  that  produces  friendliness. 

But  apart  from  this  fallacy  about  the  facts,  I  feel,  as 
I  say,  a  strong  abstract  anger  against  the  idea,  or  what 
some  would  call  the  ideal.  If  it  were  true  that  men  could 
be  taught  and  tamed  by  machines,  even  if  they  were 
taught  wisdom  or  tamed  to  amiability,  I  should  think  it 
the  most  tragic  truth  in  the  world.  A  man  so  improved 
would  be,  in  an  exceedingly  ugly  sense,  losing  his  soul  to 
save  it.  But  in  truth  he  cannot  be  so  completely  coerced 
into  good ;  and  in  so  far  as  he  is  incompletely  coerced,  he 
is  quite  as  likely  to  be  coerced  into  evil.  Of  the  financial 
characters  who  figure  as  philanthropists  and  philosophers 
in  such  cases,  it  is  strictly  true  to  say  that  their  good  is 
evil.  The  light  in  their  bodies  is  darkness,  and  the  high 
est  objects  of  such  men  are  the  lowest  objects  of  ordinary 
men.  Their  peace  is  mere  safety,  their  friendship  is  mere 
trade;  their  international  friendship  is  mere  international 
trade.  The  best  we  can  say  of  that  school  of  capitalism 
is  that  it  will  be  unsuccessful.  It  has  every  other  vice, 
but  it  is  not  practical.  It  has  at  least  the  impossibility  of 
idealism ;  and  so  far  as  remoteness  can  carry  it,  that  In 
ferno  is  indeed  a  Utopia.  All  the  visible  manifestations 


23o  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  these  men  are  materialistic;  but  at  least  their  visions 
will  not  materialise.  The  worse  we  suffer;  but  the  best 
we  shall  at  any  rate  escape.  We  may  continue  to  endure 
the  realities  of  cosmopolitan  capitalism;  but  we  shall  be 
spared  its  ideals. 

But  I  am  not  primarily  interested  in  the  plutocrats 
whose  vision  takes  so  vulgar  a  form.  I  am  interested 
in  the  same  thing  when  it  takes  a  far  more  subtle  form, 
in  men  of  genius  and  genuine  social  enthusiasm  like  Mr. 
H.  G.  Wells.  It  would  be  very  unfair  to  a  man  like  Mr. 
Wells  to  suggest  that  in  his  vision  the  Englishman  and 
the  American  are  to  embrace  only  in  the  sense  of  clinging 
to  each  other  in  terror.  He  is  a  man  who  understands 
what  friendship  is,  and  who  knows  how  to  enjoy  the  mot 
ley  humours  of  humanity.  But  the  political  reconstruc 
tion  which  he  proposes  is  too  much  determined  by  this  old 
nightmare  of  necessitarianism.  He  tells  us  that  our 
national  dignities  and  differences  must  be  melted  into  the 
huge  mould  of  a  World  State,  or  else  (and  I  think  these 
are  almost  his  own  words)  we  shall  be  destroyed  by  the 
instruments  and  machinery  we  have  ourselves  made. 
In  effect,  men  must  abandon  patriotism  or  they 
will  be  murdered  by  science.  After  this,  surely  no  one 
can  accuse  Mr.  Wells  of  an  undue  tenderness  for  scientific 
over  other  types  of  training.  Greek  may  be  a  good  thing 
or  no;  but  nobody  says  that  if  Greek  scholarship  is  carried 
past  a  certain  point,  everybody  will  be  torn  in  pieces  like 
Orpheus,  or  burned  up  like  Semele,  or  poisoned  like  Soc 
rates.  Philosophy,  theology  and  logic  may  or  may  not 
be  idle  academic  studies;  but  nobody  supposes  that  the 
study  of  philosophy,  or  even  of  theology,  ultimately 
forces  its  students  to  manufacture  racks  and  thumb 
screws  against  their  will;  or  that  even  logicians  need  be 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      231 

so  alarmingly  logical  as  all  that.  Science  seems  to  be 
the  only  branch  of  study  in  which  people  have  to  be 
waved  back  from  perfection  as  from  a  pestilence.  But 
my  business  is  not  with  the  scientific  dangers  which  alarm 
Mr.  Wells,  but  with  the  remedy  he  proposes  for  them ;  or 
rather  with  the  relation  of  that  remedy  to  the  foundation 
and  the  future  of  America.  Now  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  Mr.  Wells  finds  his  model  in  America.  The 
World  State  is  to  be  the  United  States  of  the  World. 
He  answers  almost  all  objections  to  the  practicability 
of  such  a  peace  among  states,  by  pointing  out  that  the 
American  States  have  such  a  peace,  and  by  adding,  truly 
enough,  that  another  turn  of  history  might  easily  have 
seen  them  broken  up  by  war.  The  pattern  of  the  World 
State  is  to  be  found  in  the  New  World. 

Oddly  enough,  as  it  seems  to  me,  he  proposes  almost 
cosmic  conquests  for  the  American  Constitution,  while 
leaving  out  the  most  successful  thing  in  that  Constitution. 
The  point  appeared  in  answer  to  a  question  which  many, 
like  myself,  must  have  put  in  this  matter;  the  question 
of  despotism  and  democracy.  I  cannot  understand  any 
democrat  not  seeing  the  danger  of  so  distant  and  indirect 
a  system  of  government.  It  is  hard  enough  anywhere 
to  get  representatives  to  represent.  It  is  hard  enough  to 
get  a  little  town  council  to  fulfil  the  wishes  of  a  little 
town,  even  when  the  townsmen  meet  the  town  councillors 
every  day  in  the  street,  and  could  kick  them  down  the 
street  if  they  liked.  What  the  same  town  councillors 
would  be  like  if  they  were  ruling  all  their  fellow-creatures 
from  the  North  Pole  or  the  New  Jerusalem,  is  a  vision  of 
Oriental  despotism  beyond  the  towering  fancies  of  Tam- 
berlane.  This  difficulty  in  all  representative  government 
is  felt  everywhere,  and  not  least  in  America.  But  I  think 


232  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

that  if  there  is  one  truth  apparent  in  such  a  choice  of  evils, 
it  is  that  monarchy  is  at  least  better  than  oligarchy ;  and 
that  where  we  have  to  act  on  a  large  scale,  the  most  genu 
ine  popularity  can  gather  round  a  particular  person  like 
a  Pope  or  a  President  of  the  United  States,  or  even  a 
dictator  like  Caesar  or  Napoleon,  rather  than  round  a 
more  or  less  corrupt  committee  which  can  only  be  defined 
as  an  obscure  oligarchy.  And  in  that  sense  any  oli 
garchy  is  obscure.  For  people  to  continue  to  trust 
twenty-seven  men  it  is  necessary,  as  a  preliminary  for 
mality,  that  people  should  have  heard  of  them.  And 
there  are  no  twenty-seven  men  of  whom  everybody  has 
heard  as  everybody  in  France  had  heard  of  Napoleon,  as 
all  Catholics  have  heard  of  the  Pope  or  all  Americans 
have  heard  of  the  President.  I  think  the  mass  of  ordi 
nary  Americans  do  really  elect  their  President ;  and  even 
where  they  cannot  control  him  at  least  they  watch  him, 
and  in  the  long  run  they  judge  him,  I  think,  therefore, 
that  the  American  Constitution  has  a  teal  popular  in 
stitution  in  the  Presidency.  But  Mr.  Wells  would  appear 
to  want  the  American  Constitution  without  the  Pres 
idency.  If  I  understand  his  words  rightly,  he  seems  to 
want  the  great  democracy  without  its  popular  institution. 
Alluding  to  this  danger,  that  the  World  State  might  be 
a  world  tyranny,  he  seems  to  take  tyranny  entirely  in  the 
sense  of  autocracy.  He  asks  whether  the  President  of 
the  World  State  would  not  be  rather  too  tremendous  a 
person  and  seems  to  suggest  in  answer  that  there  need  not 
even  be  any  such  a  person.  He  seems  to  imply  that  the 
committee  controlling  the  planet  could  meet  almost  with 
out  any  one  in  the  chair,  certainly  without  any  one  on  the 
throne.  I  cannot  imagine  anything  more  manifestly 
made  to  be  a  tyranny  than  such  an  acephalous  aristoc- 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      233 

racy.  But  while  Mr.  Well's  decision  seems  to  me  strange, 
his  reason  for  it  seems  to  me  still  more  extraor 
dinary. 

He  suggests  that  no  such  dictator  will  be  needed  in 
his  World  State  because  'there  will  be  no  wars  and  no 
diplomacy.'  A  World  State  ought  doubtless  to  go  round 
the  world ;  and  going  round  the  world  seems  to  be  a  good 
training  for  arguing  in  a  circle.  Obviously  there  will 
be  no  wars  and  no  war-diplomacy  if  something  has  the 
power  to  prevent  them;  and  we  cannot  deduce  that  the 
something  will  not  want  any  power.  It  is  rather  as  if 
somebody,  urging  that  the  Germans  could  only  be  de 
feated  by  uniting  the  Allied  commands  under  Marshal 
Foch,  had  said  that  after  all  it  need  not  offend  the  British 
Generals  because  the  French  supremacy  need  only  be  a 
fiction,  the  Germans  being  defeated.  We  should  natur 
ally  say  that  the  German  defeat  would  only  be  a  reality 
because  the  Allied  command  was  not  a  fiction.  So  the 
universal  peace  would  only  be  a  reality  if  the  World  State 
were  not  a  fiction.  And  it  could  not  be  even  a  state  if  it 
were  not  a  government.  This  argument  amounts  to  say 
ing,  first  that  the  World  State  will  be  needed  because  it 
is  strong,  and  then  it  may  safely  be  weak  because  it  will 
not  be  needed. 

Internationalism  is  in  any  case  hostile  to  democracy. 
I  do  not  say  it  is  incompatible  with  it ;  but  any  combina 
tion  of  the  two  will  be  a  compromise  between  the  two. 
The  only  purely  popular  government  is  local,  and  founded 
on  local  knowledge.  The  citizens  can  rule  the  city  be 
cause  they  know  the  city;  but  it  will  always  be  an  ex 
ceptional  sort  of  citizen  who  has  or  claims  the  right  to 
rule  over  ten  cities,  and  these  remote  and  altogether  alien 
cities.  All  Irishmen  may  know  roughly  the  same  sort 


234  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  things  about  Ireland;  but  it  is  absurd  to  say  they  all 
know  the  same  things  about  Iceland,  when  they  may  in 
clude  a  scholar  steeped  in  Icelandic  sagas  or  a  sailor  who 
has  been  to  Iceland.  To  make  all  politics  cosmopolitan 
is  to  create  an  aristocracy  of  globe-trotters.  If  your 
political  outlook  really  takes  in  the  Cannibal  Islands,  you 
depend  of  necessity  upon  a  superior  and  picked  minority 
of  the  people  who  have  been  to  the  Cannibal  Islands;  or 
rather"  of  the  still  smaller  and  more  select  minority  who 
have  come  back. 

Given  this  difficulty  about  quite  direct  democracy  over 
large  areas,  I  think  the  nearest  thing  to  democracy  is  des 
potism.  At  any  rate  I  think  it  is  some  sort  of  more  or 
less  independent  monarchy,  such  as  Andrew  Jackson 
created  in  America.  And  I  believe  it  is  true  to  say  that 
the  two  men  whom  the  modern  world  really  and  almost 
reluctantly  regards  with  impersonal  respect,  as  clothed 
by  their  office  with  something  historic  and  honourable, 
are  the  Pope  and  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

But  to  admire  the  United  States  as  the  United  States 
is  one  thing.  To  admire  them  as  the  World  State  is 
quite  another.  The  attempt  of  Mr.  Wells  to  make 
America  a  sort  of  model  for  the  federation  of  all  the  free 
nations  of  the  earth,  though  it  is  international  in  in 
tention,  is  really  as  narrowly  national,  in  the  bad  sense, 
as  the  desire  of  Mr.  Kipling  to  cover  the  world  with 
British  Imperialism,  or  of  Professor  Treitschke  to  cover 
it  with  Prussian  Pan-Germanism.  Not  being  schoolboys, 
we  no  longer  believe  that  everything  can  be  settled  by 
painting  the  map  red.  Nor  do  I  believe  it  can  be  done 
by  painting  it  blue  with  white  spots,  even  if  they  are 
called  stars.  The  insufficiency  of  British  Imperialism 
does  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  has  always  been  applied  by 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      235 

force  of  arms.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  not.  It  has 
been  effected  largely  by  commerce,  by  colonisation  of 
comparatively  empty  places,  by  geographical  discovery 
and  diplomatic  bargain.  Whether  it  be  regarded  as 
praise  or  blame,  it  is  certainly  the  truth  that  among  all  the 
things  that  have  called  themselves  empires,  the  British 
has  been  perhaps  the  least  purely  military,  and  has  least 
both  of  the  special  guilt  and  the  special  glory  that  goes 
with  militarism.  The  insufficiency  of  British  Imperial 
ism  is  not  that  it  is  imperial,  let  alone  military.  The  in 
sufficiency  of  British  Imperialism  is  that  it  is  British; 
when  it  is  not  merely  Jewish.  It  is  that  just  as  a  man  is 
no  more  than  a  man,  so  a  nation  is  no  more  than  a  na 
tion;  and  any  nation  is  adequate  as  an  international 
model.  Any  state  looks  small  when  it  occupies  the  whole 
earth.  Any  polity  is  narrow  as  soon  as  it  is  as  wide  as 
the  world.  It  would  be  just  the  same  if  Ireland  began 
to  paint  the  map  green  or  Montenegro  were  to  paint  it 
black.  The  objection  to  spreading  anything  all  over 
the  world  is  that,  among  other  things,  you  have  to  spread 
it  very  thin. 

But  America,  which  Mn  Wells  takes  as  a  model,  is  in 
another  sense  rather  a  warning.  Mr.  Wells  says  very 
truly  that  there  was  a  moment  in  history  when  America 
might  well  have  broken  up  into  independent  states  like 
those  of  Europe.  He  seems  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
it  was  in  all  respects  an  advantage  that  this  was  avoided. 
Yet  there  is  surely  a  case,  however  mildly  we  put  it,  for 
a  certain  importance  in  the  world  still  attaching  to  Europe. 
There  are  some  who  find  France  as  interesting  as  Florida ; 
and  who  think  they  can  learn  as  much  about  history  and 
humanity  in  the  marble  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  as  in 
the  wooden  towns  of  the  Middle  West.  Europe  may 


236  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

have  been  divided,  but  it  was  certainly  not  destroyed; 
nor  has  its  peculiar  position  in  the  culture  of  the  world 
been  destroyed.  Nothing  has  yet  appeared  capable  of 
completely  eclipsing  it,  either  in  its  extension  in  America 
or  its  imitation  in  Japan.  But  the  immediate  point  here 
is  perhaps  a  more  important  one*  There  is  now  no 
creed  accepted  as  embodying  the  common  sense  of  all 
Europe,  as  the  Catholic  creed  was  accepted  as  embodying 
it  in  mediaeval  times.  There  is  no  culture  broadly  su 
perior  to  all  others,  as  the  Mediterranean  culture  was  su 
perior  to  that  of  the  barbarians  in  Roman  times.  If 
Europe  were  united  in  modern  times,  it  would  probably 
be  by  the  victory  of  one  of  its  types  over  others,  pos 
sibly  over  all  the  others.  And  when  America  was  uni 
ted  finally  in  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  by  the  vic 
tory  of  one  of  its  types  over  others.  It  is  not  yet  cer 
tain  that  this  victory  was  a  good  thing.  It  is  not  yet 
certain  that  the  world  will  be  better  for  the  triumph  of  the 
North  over  the  Southern  traditions  of  America.  It 
may  yet  turn  out  to  be  as  unfortunate  as  a  triumph  of 
the  North  Germans  over  the  Southern  traditions  of 
Germany  and  of  Europe. 

The  men  who  will  not  face  this  fact  are  men  whose 
minds  are  not  free.  They  are  more  crushed  by  Progress 
than  any  pietists  by  Providence.  They  are  not  allowed 
to  question  that  whatever  has  recently  happened  was  all 
for  the  best.  Now  Progress  is  Providence  without  God. 
That  is,  it  is  a  theory  that  everything  has  always  per 
petually  gone  right  by  accident.  It  is  a  sort  of  atheis 
tic  optimism,  based  on  an  everlasting  coincidence  far 
more  miraculous  than  a  miracle.  If  there  be  no  pur 
pose,  or  if  the  purpose  permits  of  human  free  will,  then 
in  either  case  it  is  almost  insanely  unlikely  that  there 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      237 

should  be  in  history  a  period  of  steady  and  uninterrupted 
progress ;  or  in  other  words  a  period  in  which  poor  be 
wildered  humanity  moves  amid  a  chaos  of  complications, 
without  making  a  single  mistake.  What  has  to  be  ham 
mered  into  the  heads  of  most  normal  newspaper-readers 
to-day  is  that  Man  has  made  a  great  many  mistakes. 
Modern  Man  has  made  a  great  many  mistakes.  Indeed, 
in  the  case  of  that  progressive  and  pioneering  character, 
one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  say  that  he  has  made  noth 
ing  but  mistakes.  Calvinism  was  a  mistake,  and  Capi 
talism  was  a  mistake,  and  Teutonism  and  the  flattery 
of  the  Northern  tribes  were  mistakes.  In  the  French 
the  persecution  of  Catholicism  by  the  politicians  was  a 
mistake,  as  they  found  out  in  the  Great  War;  when  the 
memory  gave  Irish  or  Italian  Catholics  an  excuse  for 
hanging  back.  In  England  the  loss  of  agriculture  and 
therefore  of  food-supply  in  war,  and  the  power  to  stand 
a  siege,  was  a  mistake.  And  in  America  the  introduction 
of  the  negroes  was  a  mistake;  but  it  may  yet  be  found 
that  the  sacrifice  of  the  Southern  white  man  to  them 
was  even  more  of  a  mistake. 

The  reason  of  this  doubt  is  in  one  word.  We  have 
not  yet  seen  the  end  of  the  whole  industrial  experiment; 
and  there  are  already  signs  of  it  coming  to  a  bad  end.  It 
may  end  in  Bolshevism.  It  is  more  likely  to  end  in  the 
Servile  State.  Indeed,  the  two  things  are  not  so  differ 
ent  as  some  suppose,  and  they  grow  less  different  every 
day.  The  Bolshevists  have  already  called  in  Capitalists 
to  help  them  to  crush  the  free  peasants.  The  Capitalists 
are  quite  likely  to  call  in  Labour  leaders  to  whitewash 
their  compromise  as  social  reform  or  even  Socialism. 
The  cosmopolitan  Jews  who  are  the  Communists  in  the 
East  will  not  find  it  so  very  hard  to  make  a  bargain  with 


238  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  cosmopolitan  Jews  who  are  Capitalists  in  the  West. 
The  Western  Jews  would  be  willing  to  admit  a  nominal 
Socialism.  The  Eastern  Jews  have  already  admitted 
that  their  Socialism  is  nominal.  It  was  the  Bolshevist 
ileader  himself  who  said,  'Russia  is  again  a  Capitalist 
country.'  But  whoever  makes  the  bargain,  and  what 
ever  is  its  precise  character,  the  substance  of  it  will  be 
servile.  It  will  be  servile  in  the  only  rational  and  reliable 
sense ;  that  is  an  arrangement  by  which  a  mass  of  men  are 
ensured  shelter  and  livelihood,  in  return  for  being  sub 
jected  to  a  law  which  obliges  them  to  continue  to  labour. 
Of  course  it  will  not  be  called  the  Servile  State;  it  is  very 
probable  that  it  will  be  called  the  Socialist  State.  But 
nobody  seems  to  realise  how  very  near  all  the  industrial 
countries  are  to  it.  At  any  moment  it  may  appear  in 
the  simple  form  of  compulsory  arbitration;  for  compul 
sory  arbitration  dealing  with  private  employers  is  by 
definition  slavery.  When  workmen  receive  unemploy 
ment  pay,  and  at  the  same  time  arouse  more  and  more 
irritation  by  going  on  strike,  it  may  seem  very  natural 
to  give  them  the  unemployment  pay  for  good  and  forbid 
them  the  strike  for  good;  and  the  combination  of  those 
two  things  is  by  definition  slavery.  And  Trotsky  can 
beat  any  Trust  magnate  as  a  strike-breaker;  for  he  does 
not  even  pretend  that  his  compulsory  labour  is  a  free 
bargain.  If  Trotsky  and  the  Trust  magnate  come  to 
a  working  compromise,  that  compromise  will  be  a  Ser 
vile  State.  But  it  will  also  be  the  supreme  and  by  far 
the  most  constructive  and  conclusive  result  of  the  in 
dustrial  movement  in  history;  of  the  power  of  machinery 
or  money;  of  the  huge  populations  of  the  modern  cities; 
of  scientific  inventions  and  resources;  of  all  the  things 
before  which  the  agricultural  society  of  the  Southern 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      239 

Confederacy  went  down.  But  even  those  who  cannot 
see  that  commercialism  may  end  in  the  triumph  of  slav 
ery  can  see  that  the  Northern  victory  has  to  a  great  ex 
tent  ended  in  the  triumph  of  commercialism.  And  the 
point  at  the  moment  is  that  this  did  definitely  mean, 
even  at  the  time,  the  triumph  of  one  American  type  over 
another  American  type;  just  as  much  as  any  European 
war  might  mean  the  triumph  of  one  European  type  over 
another,  A  victory  of  England  over  France  would  be 
a  victory  of  merchants  over  peasants;  and  the  victory 
of  Northerners  over  Southerners  was  a  victory  of  mer 
chants  over  squires.  So  that  that  very  unity,  which  Mr. 
Wells  contrasts  so  favourably  with  war,  was  not  only  it 
self  due  to  a  war,  but  to  a  war  which  had  one  of  the  most 
questionable  and  even  perilous  of  the  results  of  war. 
That  result  was  a  change  in  the  balance  of  power,  the  pre 
dominance  of  a  particular  partner,  the  exaltation  of  a 
particular  example,  the  eclipse  of  excellent  traditions 
when  the  defeated  lost  their  international  influence.  In 
short,  it  made  exactly  the  same  sort  of  difference  of  which 
we  speak  when  we  say  that  1870  was  a  disaster  to  Europe, 
or  that  it  was  necessary  to  fight  Prussia  lest  she  should 
Prussianise  the  whole  world.  America  would  have 
been  very  different  if  the  leadership  had  remained  with 
Virginia.  The  world  would  have  been  very  different 
if  America  had  been  very  different.  It  is  quite  reason 
able  to  rejoice  that  the  issue  went  as  it  did;  indeed,  as 
I  have  explained  elsewhere,  for  other  reasons  I  do  on 
the  whole  rejoice  in  it.  But  it  is  certainly  not  self-evi 
dent  that  it  is  a  matter  for  rejoicing.  One  type  of 
American  state  conquered  and  subjugated  another  type 
of  American  state ;  and  the  virtues  and  value  of  the  latter 
were  very  largely  lost  to  the  world.  So  if  Mr.  Wells  in- 


240  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

sists  on  the  parallel  of  a  United  States  of  Europe,  he 
must  accept  the  parallel  of  a  Civil  War  of  Europe.  He 
must  suppose  that  the  peasant  countries  crush  the  indus 
trial  countries  or  vice  versa;  and  that  one  or  other  of 
them  becomes  the  European  tradition  to  the  neglect  of 
the  other.  The  situation  which  seems  to  satisfy  him  so 
completely  in  America  is,  after  all,  the  situation  which 
would  result  in  Europe  if  the  German  Empire,  let  us 
say,  had  entirely  arrested  the  special  development  of  the 
Slavs;  or  if  the  influence  of  France  had  really  broken  off 
short  under  the  blow  from  Britain^  The  Old  South  had 
qualities  of  humane  civilisation  which  have  not  sufficiently 
survived ;  or  at  any  rate  have  not  sufficiently  spread.  It 
is  true  that  the  decline  of  the  agricultural  South  has  been 
considerably  balanced  by  the  growth  of  the  agricultural 
West.  It  is  true,  as  I  have  occasion  to  emphasise  in 
another  place,  that  the  West  does  give  the  New  America 
something  that  is  nearly  a  normal  peasantry,  as  a  pen 
dant  to  the  industrial  towns.  But  this  is  not  an  answer ; 
it  is  rather  an  augmentation  of  the  argument.  In  so  far 
as  America  is  saved  it  is  saved  by  being  patchy;  and 
would  be  ruined  if  the  Western  patch  had  the  same  fate 
as  the  Southern  patch.  When  all  is  said,  therefore,  the 
advantages  of  American  unification  are  not  so  certain 
that  we  can  apply  them  to  a  world  unification.  The 
doubt  could  be  expressed  in  a  great  many  ways  and  by 
a  great  many  examples.  !For  that  matter,  it  is  already 
being  felt  that  supremacy  of  the  Middle  West  in  politics 
is  inflicting  upon  other  localities  exactly  the  sort  of  local 
injustice  that  turns  provinces  into  nations  struggling  to 
be  free.  It  has  already  inflicted  what  amounts  to  re 
ligious  persecution,  or  the  imposition  of  an  alien  moral 
ity,  on  the  wine-growing  civilisation  of  California.  In 


WELLS  AND  THE  WORLD  STATE      241 

a  word,  the  American  system  is  a  good  one  as  govern 
ments  go ;  but  it  is  too  large,  and  the  world  will  not  be  im 
proved  by  making  it  larger.  And  for  this  reason  alone 
I  should  reject  this  second  method  of  uniting  England 
and  America;  which  is  not  only  Americanising  England, 
but  Americanising  everything  else. 

But  the  essential  reason  is  that  a  type  of  culture  came 
out  on  top  in  America  and  England  in  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  which  cannot  and  would  not  be  tolerated  on  top  of 
the  world.     To  unite  all  the  systems  at  the  top,  without 
improving  and  simplifying  their  social  organisation  be 
low,  would  be  to  tie  all  the  tops  of  the  trees  together 
where  they  rise  above  a  dense  and  poisonous  jungle,  and 
make  the  jungle  darker  than  before.     To  create  such  a 
cosmopolitan  political  platform  would  be  to  build  a  roof 
above  our  own  heads  to  shut  out  the  sunlight,  on  which 
only  usurers  and  conspirators  clad  in  gold  could  walk 
about  in  the  sun.     This  is  no  moment  when  industrial 
intellectualism   can   inflict  such  an  artificial  oppression 
upon  the  world.     Industrialism  itself  is  coming  to  see 
dark  days,  and  its  future  is  very  doubtful.     It  is  split 
from  end  to  end  with  strikes  and  struggles  for  economic 
life,  in  which  the  poor  not  only  plead  that  they  are  starv 
ing,  but  even  the  rich  can  only  plead  that  they  are  bank 
rupt.     The  peasantries  are  growing  not  only  more  pros 
perous  but  more  politically  effective;  the  Russian  moujik 
has  held  up  the  Bolshevist  Government  of  Moscow  and 
Petersburg;  a  huge  concession  has  been  made  by  Eng 
land  to  Ireland;  the  League  of  Nations  has  decided  for 
Poland  against   Prussia.     It  is  not  certain  that  indus 
trialism  will  not  wither  even  in  its  own  field ;  it  is  certain 
that  its  intellectual  ideas  will  not  be  allowed  to  cover 
every  field;  and  this  sort  of  cosmopolitan  culture  is  one 


242  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  its  ideas.  Industrialism  itself  may  perish;  or  on  the 
other  hand  industrialism  itself  may  survive,  by  some 
searching  and  scientific  reform  that  will  really  guarantee 
economic  security  to  all.  It  may  really  purge  itself  of 
the  accidental  maladies  of  anarchy  and  famine;  and  con 
tinue  as  a  machine,  but  at  least  as  a  comparatively  clean 
and  humanely  shielded  machine;  at  any  rate  no  longer 
as  a  man-eating  machine.  Capitalism  may  clear  itself 
of  its  worst  corruptions  by  such  reform  as  is  open  to  it ; 
by  creating  humane  and  healthy  conditions  for  labour, 
and  setting  the  labouring  classes  to  work  under  a  lucid 
and  recognised  law.  It  may  make  Pittsburg  one  vast 
model  factory  for  all  who  will  model  themselves  upon  fac 
tories;  and  may  give  to  all  men  and  women  in  its  em 
ployment  a  clear  social  status  in  which  they  can  be  con 
tented  and  secure.  And  on  the  day  when  that  social  se 
curity  is  established  for  the  masses,  when  industrial  cap 
italism  has  achieved  this  larger  and  more  logical  organ 
isation  and  found  peace  at  last,  a  strange  and  shadowy 
and  ironic  triumph,  like  an  abstract  apology,  will  surely 
hover  over  all  those  graves  in  the  Wilderness  where  lay 
the  bones  of  so  many  gallant  gentlemen;  men  who  had 
also  from  their  youth  known  and  upheld  such  a  social 
stratification,  who  had  the  courage  to  call  a  spade  a  spade 
and  a  slave  a  slave. 


A  NEW   MARTIN   CHUZZLEWIT 

THE  aim  of  this  book,  if  it  has  one,  is  to  suggest 
this  thesis;  that  the  very  worst  way  of  helping 
Anglo-American  friendship  is  to  be  an  Anglo- 
American.  There  is  only  one  thing  lower,  of  course, 
which  is  being  an  Anglo-Saxon.  It  is  lower,  because 
at  least  Englishmen  do  exist  and  Americans  do  exist; 
and  it  may  be  possible,  though  repulsive,  to  imagine  an 
American  and  an  Englishman  in  some  way  blended  to 
gether.  But  if  Angles  and  Saxons  ever  did  exist,  they 
are  all  fortunately  dead  now ;  and  the  wildest  imagination 
cannot  form  the  weakest  idea  of  what  sort  of  monster 
would  be  made  of  mixing  one  with  the  other.  But  my 
thesis  is  that  the  whole  hope,  and  the  only  hope,  lies  not 
in  mixing  two  things  together,  but  rather  in  cutting  them 
very  sharply  asunder.  That  is  the  only  way  in  which 
two  things  can  succeed  sufficiently  in  getting  outside  each 
other  to  appreciate  and  admire  each  other.  So  long  as 
they  are  different  and  yet  supposed  to  be  the  same, 
there  can  be  nothing  but  a  divided  mind  and  a  staggering 
balance.  It  may  be  that  in  the  first  twilight  of  time  man 
and  woman  walked  about  as  one  quadruped.  But  if  they 
did,  I  am  sure  it  was  a  quadruped  that  reared  and  bucked 
and  kicked  up  its  heels.  Then  the  flaming  sword  of 
some  angel  divided  them,  and  they  fell  in  love  with  each 
other. 

Should  the  reader  require  an  example  a  little  more 
within  historical  range,  or  a  little  more  subject  to  critical 
tests,  than  the  above  prehistoric  anecdote  (which  I  need 

243 


244  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

not  say  was  revealed  to  me  in  a  vision)  it  would  be  easy 
enough  to  supply  them  both  in  a  hypothetical  and  a  his 
torical  form.  It  is  obvious  enough  in  a  general  way 
that  if  we  begin  to  subject  diverse  countries  to  an  identi 
cal  test,  there  will  not  only  be  rivalry,  but  what  is  far 
more  deadly  and  disastrous,  superiority.  If  we  institute 
a  competition  between  Holland  and  Switzerland  as  to  the 
relative  grace  and  agility  of  their  mountain  guides,  it  will 
be  clear  that  the  decision  is  disproportionately  easy;  it 
will  also  be  clear  that  certain  facts  about  the  configura 
tion  of  Holland  have  escaped  our  international  eye.  If 
we  establish  a  comparison  between  them  in  skill  and 
industry  in  the  art  of  building  dykes  against  the  sea,  it 
will  be  equally  clear  that  the  injustice  falls  the  other  way; 
it  will  also  be  clear  that  the  situation  of  Switzerland  on 
the  map  has  received  insufficient  study.  In  both  cases 
there  will  not  only  be  rivalry  but  very  unbalanced  and 
unjust  rivalry;  in  both  cases,  therefore,  there  will  not 
only  be  enmity  but  very  bitter  or  insolent  enmity.  But 
so  long  as  the  two  are  sharply  divided  there  can  be  no 
enmity  because  there  can  be  no  rivalry.  Nobody  can  ar 
gue  about  whether  the  Swiss  climb  mountains  better  than 
the  Dutch  build  dykes;  just  as  nobody  can  argue  about 
whether  a  triangle  is  more  triangular  than  a  circle  is 
round. 

This  fancy  example  is  alphabetically  and  indeed  arti 
ficially  simple;  but,  having  used  it  for  convenience,  I 
could  easily  give  similar  examples  not  of  fancy  but  of 
fact.  I  had  occasion  recently  to  attend  the  Christmas 
festivity  of  a  club  in  London  for  the  exiles  of  one  of  the 
Scandinavian  nations.  When  I  entered  the  room  the 
first  thing  that  struck  my  eye,  and  greatly  raised  my 
spirits,  was  that  the  room  was  dotted  with  the  colours  of 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         245 

peasant  costumes  and  the  specimens  of  peasant  crafts 
manship.  There  were,  of  course,  other  costumes  and 
other  crafts  in  evidence;  there  were  men  dressed  like 
myself  (only  better)  in  the  garb  of  the  modern  middle 
classes;  there  was  furniture  like  the  furniture  of  any 
other  room  in  London.  Now,  according  to  the  ideal 
formula  of  the  ordinary  internationalist,  these  things 
that  we  had  in  common  ought  to  have  moved  me  to  a 
sense  of  the  kinship  of  all  civilisation.  I  ought  to  have 
felt  that  as  the  Scandinavian  gentleman  wore  a  collar 
and  tie,  and  I  also  wore  a  collar  and  tie,  we  were  brothers 
and  nothing  could  come  between  us.  I  ought  to  have 
felt  that  we  were  standing  for  the  same  principles  of 
truth  because  we  were  wearing  the  same  pair  of  trousers ; 
or  rather,  to  speak  with  more  precision,  similar  pairs 
of  trousers.  Anyhow,  the  pair  of  trousers,  that  cloven 
pennon,  ought  to  have  floated  in  fancy  over  my  head  as 
the  banner  of  Europe  or  the  League  of  Nations.  I  am 
constrained  to  confess  that  no  such  rush  of  emotions 
overcame  me;  and  the  topic  of  trousers  did  not  float 
across  my  mind  at  all.  So  far  as  those  things  were 
concerned,  I  might  have  remained  in  a  mood  of  mortal 
enmity,  and  cheerfully  shot  or  stabbed  the  best-dressed 
gentleman  in  the  room.  Precisely  what  did  warm  my 
heart  with  an  abrupt  affection  for  that  northern  nation 
was  the  very  thing  that  is  utterly  and  indeed  lamentably 
lacking  in  my  own  nation.  It  was  something  corre 
sponding  to  the  one  great  gap  in  English  history,  corre 
sponding  to  the  one  great  blot  on  English  civilisation.  It 
was  the  spiritual  presence  of  a  peasantry,  dressed  accord 
ing  to  its  own  dignity,  and  expressing  itself  by  its  own 
creations. 

The  sketch  of  America  left  by  Charles  Dickens  is  gen- 


246  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

erally  regarded  as  something  which  is  either  to  be  used 
as  a  taunt  or  covered  with  an  apology.  Doubtless  it  was 
unduly  critical,  even  of  the  America  of  that  day;  yet 
curiously  enough  it  may  well  be  the  text  for  a  true  rec 
onciliation  at  the  present  day.  It  is  true  that  in  this, 
as  in  other  things,  the  Dickensian  exaggeration  is  itself 
exaggerated.  It  is  also  true  that,  while  it  is  over-em 
phasised,  it  is  not  allowed  for.  Dickens  tended  too  much 
to  describe  the  United  States  as  a  vast  lunatic  asylum; 
but  partly  because  he  had  a  natural  inspiration  and  imag 
ination  suited  to  the  description  of  lunatic  asylums.  As 
it  was  his  finest  poetic  fancy  that  created  a  lunatic  over 
the  garden  wall,  so  it  was  his  fancy  that  created  a  lunatic 
over  the  western  sea.  To  read  some  of  the  complaints, 
one  would  fancy  that  Dickens  had  deliberately  invented 
a  low  and  farcical  America  to  be  a  contrast  to  his  high 
and  exalted  England.  It  is  suggested  that  he  showed 
America  as  full  of  rowdy  bullies  like  Hannibal  Chollop, 
or  as  ridiculous  wind-bags  like  Elijah  Pogram,  while 
England  was  full  of  refined  and  sincere  spirits  like  Jonas 
Chuzzlewit,  Chevy  Slime,  Montague  Tigg,  and  Mr.  Peck 
sniff.  If  Martin  Chuzzlewit  makes  America  a  lunatic 
asylum,  what  in  the  world  does  it  make  England?  We 
can  only  say  a  criminal  lunatic  asylum.  The  truth  is,  of 
course,  that  Dickens  so  described  them  because  he  had  a 
genius  for  that  sort  of  description;  for  the  making  of 
almost  maniacal  grotesques  of  the  same  type  as  Quilp 
or  Fagin.  He  made  these  Americans  absurd  because  he 
was  an  artist  in  absurdity ;  and  no  artist  can  help  finding 
hints  everywhere  for  his  own  peculiar  art.  In  a  word, 
he  created  a  laughable  Pogram  for  the  same  reason 
that  he  created  a  laughable  Pecksniff;  and  that  was 
only  because  no  other  creature  could  have  created  them. 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         247 

It  is  often  said  that  we  learn  to  love  the  characters  in 
romances  as  if  they  were  characters  in  real  life.  I  wish 
we  could  sometimes  love  the  characters  in  real  life  as  we 
love  the  characters  in  romances.  There  are  a  great  many 
human  souls  whom  we  should  accept  more  kindly,  and 
even  appreciate  more  clearly,  if  we  simply  thought  of  them 
as  people  in  a  story.  Martin  Chuzzlewit  is  itself  indeed  an 
unsatisfactory  and  even  unfortunate  example;  for  it  is, 
among  its  author's  other  works,  a  rather  unusually  harsh 
and  hostile  story.  I  do  not  suggest  that  we  should  feel 
towards  an  American  friend  that  exact  shade  or  tint  of 
tenderness  that  we  feel  towards  Mr.  Hannibal  Chollop. 
Our  enjoyment  of  the  foreigner  should  rather  resemble 
our  enjoyment  of  Pickwick  than  our  enjoyment  of  Peck 
sniff.  But  there  is"  this  amount  of  appropriateness  even 
in  the  particular  example ;  that  Dickens  did  show  in  both 
countries  how  men  can  be  made  amusing  to  each  other. 
So  far  the  point  is  not  that  he  made  fun  of  America,  but 
that  he  got  fun  out  of  America.  And,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  he  applied  exactly  the  same  method  of 
selection  and  exaggeration  to  England.  In  the  other 
English  stories,  written  in  E  more  amiable  mood,  he 
applied  it  in  a  more  amiable  manner;  but  he  could  apply 
it  to  an  American  too,  when  he  was  writing  in  that  mood 
and  manner.  We  can  see  it  in  the  witty  and  withering 
criticism  delivered  by  the  Yankee  traveller  in  the  musty 
refreshment  room  of  Mugby  Junction ;  a  genuine  example 
of  a  genuinely  American  fun  and  freedom  satirising  a 
genuinely  British  stuffiness  and  snobbery.  Nobody  ex 
pects  the  American  traveller  to  admire  the  refreshments  at 
Mugby  Junction ;  but  he  might  admire  the  refreshment  at 
one  of  the  Pickwickian  inns,  especially  if  it  contained 
Pickwick.  Nobody  expects  Pickwick  to  like  Pogram; 


248  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

but  he  might  like  the  American  who  made  fun  of  Mugby 
Junction.  But  the  point  is  that,  while  he  supported  him 
in  making  fun,  he  would  also  think  him  funny.  The  two 
comic  characters  could  admire  each  other,  but  they  would 
also  be  amused  at  each  other.  And  the  American  would 
think  the  Englishman  funny  because  he  was  English; 
and  a  very  good  reason  too.  The  Englishman  would 
think  the  American  amusing  because  he  was  American; 
nor  can  I  imagine  a  better  ground  for  his  amusement. 

Now  many  will  debate  on  the  psychological  possibility 
of  such  a  friendship  founded  on  reciprocal  ridicule,  or 
rather  on  a  comedy  of  comparisons.  But  I  will  say  of 
this  harmony  of  humours  what  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  says 
of  his  harmony  of  states  in  the  unity  of  his  World  State. 
If  it  can  be  truly  impossible  to  have  such  a  peace,  then 
there  is  nothing  possible  except  war.  If  we  cannot  have 
friends  in  this  fashion,  then  we  shall  sooner  or  later 
have  enemies  in  some  other  fashion.  There  is  no  hope 
in  the  pompous  impersonalities  of  internationalism. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  real  and  relevant  mistake  of 
Dickens.  It  was  not  in  thinking  his  Americans  funny, 
but  in  thinking  them  foolish  because  they  were  funny. 
In  this  sense  it  will  be  noticed  that  Dickens's  American 
sketches  are  almost  avowedly  superficial;  they  are  de 
scriptions  of  public  life  and  riot  private  life.  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  Brick  had  no  private  life.  But  Mr.  Jonas  Chuzzle- 
wit  undoubtedly  had  a  private  life;  and  even  kept  some 
parts  of  it  exceeding  private.  Mr.  Pecksniff  was  also  a 
domestic  character;  so  was  Mr.  Quilp.  Mr.  Pecksniff 
and  Mr.  Quilp  had  slightly  different  ways  of  surprising 
their  families ;  Mr.  Pecksniff  by  playfully  observing 
'Boh!'  when  he  came  home;  Mr.  Quilp  by  coming 
home  at  all.  But  we  can  form  no  picture  of  how  Mr. 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         249 

Hannibal  Chollop  playfully  surprised  his  family;  possi 
bly  by  shooting  at  them ;  possibly  by  not  shooting  at  them. 
We  can  only  say  that  he  would  rather  surprise  us  by 
having  a  family  at  all.  We  do  not  know  how  the 
Mother  of  the  Modern  Gracchi  managed  the  Modern 
Gracchi;  for  her  maternity  was  rather  a  public  than 
private  office.  We  have  no  romantic  moonlit  scenes  of 
the  love-making  of  Elijah  Pogram,  to  balance  against 
the  love  story  of  Seth  Pecksniff.  These  figures  are  all 
in  a  special  sense  theatrical;  all  facing  one  way  and  lit 
up  by  a  public  limelight.  Their  ridiculous  characters  are 
detachable  from  their  real  characters,  if  they  have  any 
real  characters.  And  the  author  might  perfectly  well 
be  right  about  what  is  ridiculous,  and  wrong  about  what 
is  real.  He  might  be  as  right  in  smiling  at  the  Pograms 
and  the  Bricks  as  in  smiling  at  the  Pickwicks  and  the 
Boffins.  And  he  might  still  be  as  wrong  in  seeing  Mr. 
Pogram  as  a  hypocrite  as  the  great  Buzfuz  was  wrong 
in  seeing  Mr.  Pickwick  as  a  monster  of  revolting  heart- 
lessness  and  systematic  villainy.  He  might  still  be  as 
wrong  in  thinking  Jefferson  Brick  a  charlatan  and  a 
cheat  as  was  that  great  disciple  of  Lavater,  Mrs.  Wilfer, 
in  tracing  every  wrinkle  of  evil  cunning  in  the  face  of 
Mrs.  Boffin.  For  Mr.  Pickwick's  spectacles  and  gaiters 
and  Mrs.  Boffin's  bonnets  and  boudoir  are  after  all  super 
ficial  jokes;  and  might  be  equally  well  seen  whatever 
we  saw  beneath  them.  A  man  may  smile  and  smile  and 
be  a  villain;  but  a  man  may  also  make  us  smile  and 
not  be  a  villain.  He  may  make  us  smile  and  not  even  be  a 
fool.  He  may  make  us  roar  with  laughter  and  be  an 
exceedingly  wise  man. 

Now  that  is  the  paradox  of  America  which  Dickens 
never  discovered.     Elijah  Pogram  was  far  more  fantas- 


250  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

tic  than  his  satirist  thought;  and  the  most  grotesque 
feature  of  Brick  and  Chollop  was  hidden  from  him. 
The  really  strange  thing  was  that  Pogram  probably  did 
say,  'Rough  he  may  be.  So  air  our  bars.  Wild  he  may 
be.  So  air  our  buffalers,'  and  yet  was  a  perfectly  intelli 
gent  and  public-spirited  citizen  while  he  said  it.  The 
extraordinary  thing  is  that  Jefferson  Brick  may  really 
have  said,  'The  libation  of  freedom  must  sometimes  be 
quaffed  in  blood/  and  yet  Jefferson  Brick  may  have 
served  freedom,  resisting  unto  blood.  There  really  has 
been  a  florid  school  of  rhetoric  in  the  United  States 
which  has  made  it  quite  possible  for  serious  and  sensible 
men  to  say  such  things.  It  is  amusing  simply  as  a  differ 
ence  of  idiom  or  costume  is  always  amusing;  just  as  Eng 
lish  idiom  and  English  costume  are  amusing  to  Ameri 
cans.  But  about  this  kind  of  difference  there  can  be  no 
kind  of  doubt.  So  sturdy  not  to  say  stuffy  a  materialist 
as  Ingersoll  could  say  of  so  shoddy  not  to  say  shady  a 
financial  politician  as  Blaine,  'Like  an  armed  warrior, 
like  a  plumed  knight,  James  G.  Blaine  strode  down  the 
hall  of  Congress,  and  flung  his  spear  full  and  true  at  the 
shield  of  every  enemy  of  his  country  and  every  traducer 
of  his  fair  name.'  Compared  with  that,  the  passage 
about  bears  and  buffaloes,  which  Mr.  Pogram  delivered 
in  defense  of  the  defaulting  post-master,  is  really  a  very 
reasonably  and  appropriate  statement.  For  bears  and 
buffaloes  are  wild  and  rough  and  in  that  sense  free ;  while 
plumed  knights  do  not  throw  their  lances  about  like  the 
assegais  of  Zulus.  And  the  defaulting  post-master  was 
at  least  as  good  a  person  to  praise  in  such  a  fashion  as 
James  G.  Blaine  of  the  Little  Rock  Railway.  But  any 
body  who  treated  Ingersoll  or  Blaine  merely  as  a  fool 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         251 

and  a  figure  of  fun  would  have  very  rapidly  found  out 
his  mistake.  But  Dickens  did  not  know  Brick  or  Chollop 
long  enough  to  find  out  his  mistake.  It  need  not  be 
denied  that,  even  after  a  full  understanding,  he  might 
still  have  found  things  to  smile  at  or  to  criticise.  I  do 
not  insist  on  his  admitting  that  Hannibal  Chollop  was 
as  great  a  hero  as  Hannibal,  or  that  Elijah  Pogram  was  as 
true  a  prophet  as  Elijah.  But  I  do  say  very  seriously 
that  they  had  something  about  their  atmosphere  and 
situation  that  made  possible  a  sort  of  heroism  and 
even  a  sort  of  prophecy  that  were  really  less  natural  at 
that  period  in  that  Merry  England  whose  comedy  and 
common  sense  we  sum  up  under  the  name  of  Dickens. 
When  we  joke  about  the  name  of  Hannibal  Chollop,  we 
might  remember  of  what  nation  was  the  general  who 
dismissed  his  defeated  soldiers  at  Appomatox  with 
words  which  the  historian  has  justly  declared  to  be 
worthy  of  Hannibal :  'We  have  fought  through  this  war 
together.  I  have  done  my  best  for  you.'  It  is  not  fair  to 
forget  Jefferson,  or  even  Jefferson  Davis,  entirely  in 
favour  of  Jefferson  Brick. 

For  all  these  three  things,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent, 
go  together  to  form  something  that  Dickens  missed, 
merely  because  the  England  of  his  time  most  disastrously 
missed  it.  In  this  case,  as  in  every-  case,  the  only  way 
to  measure  justly  the  excess  of  a  foreign  country  is  to 
measure  the  defect  of  our  own  country.  For  in  this 
matter  the  human  mind  is  the  victim  of  a  curious  little 
unconscious  trick,  the  cause  of  nearly  all  international 
dislikes.  A  man  treats  his  own  faults  as  original  sin 
and  supposes  them  scattered  everywhere  with  the  seed  of 
Adam.  He  supposes  that  men  have  then  added  their 


252  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

own  foreign  vices  to  the  solid  and  simple  foundation  of 
his  own  private  vices.  It  would  astound  him  to  realise 
that  they  have  actually,  by  their  strange  erratic  path, 
avoided  his  vices  as  well  as  his  virtues.  His  own  faults 
are  things  with  which  he  is  so  much  at  home  that  he  at 
once  forgets  and  assumes  them  abroad.  He  is  so  faintly 
conscious  of  them  in  himself  that  he  is  not  even  conscious 
of  the  absence  of  them  in  other  people.  He  assumes 
that  they  are  there  so  that  he  does  not  see  that  they  are 
not  there.  The  Englishman  takes  it  for  granted  that  a 
Frenchman  will  have  all  the  English  faults.  Then  he 
goes  on  to  be  seriously  angry  with  the  Frenchman  for 
having  dared  to  complicate  them  by  the  French  faults. 
The  notion  that  the  Frenchman  has  the  French  faults 
and  not  the  English  faults  is  a  paradox  too  wild  to  cross 
his  mind. 

He  is  like  an  old  Chinaman  who  should  laugh  at  Euro 
peans  for  wearing  ludicrous  top-hats  and  curling  up  their 
pig-tails  inside  them ;  because  obviously  all  men  have  pig 
tails,  as  all  monkeys  have  tails.  Or  he  is  like  an  old 
Chinese  lady  who  should  justly  deride  the  high-heeled 
shoes  of  the  West,  considering  them  a  needless  addition 
to  the  sufficiently  tight  and  secure  bandaging  of  the  foot; 
for,  of  course,  all  women  bind  up  their  feet,  as  all  women 
bind  up  their  hair.  What  these  Celestial  thinkers  would 
not  think  of,  or  allow  for,  is  the  -wild  possibility  that  we 
do  not  have  pig-tails  although  we  do  have  top-hats,  or 
that  our  ladies  are  not  silly  enough  to  have  Chinese  feet, 
though  they  are  silly  enough  to  have  high-heeled  shoes. 
Nor  should  we  necessarily  have  come  an  inch  nearer  to 
the  Chinese  extravagances  even  if  the  chimney-pot  hat 
rose  higher  than  a  factory  chimney  or  the  high  heels  had 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         253 

evolved  into  a  sort  of  stilts.  By  the  same  fallacy  the 
Englishman  will  not  only  curse  the  French  peasant  as  a 
miser,  but  will  also  try  to  tip  him  as  a  beggar.  That  is, 
he  will  first  complain  of  the  man  having  the  surliness  of 
an  independent  man,  and  then  accuse  him  of  having  the 
servility  of  a  dependent  one.  Just  as  the  hypothetical 
Chinaman  cannot  believe  that  we  have  top-hats  but  not 
pig-tails,  so  the  Englishman  cannot  believe  that  peasants 
are  not  snobs  even  when  they  are  savages.  Or  he  sees 
that  a  Paris  paper  is  violent  and  sensational;  and  then 
supposes  that  some  millionaire  owns  twenty  such  papers 
and  runs  them  as  a  newspaper  trust.  Surely  the  Yellow 
Press  is  present  everywhere  to  paint  the  map  yellow,  as 
the  British  Empire  to  paint  it  red.  It  never  occurs  to 
such  a  critic  that  the  French  paper  is  violent  because  it  is 
personal,  and  personal  because  it  belongs  to  a  real  and 
responsible  person,  and  not  to  a  ring  of  nameless  million 
aires.  It  is  a  pamphlet,  and  not  an  anonymous  pamphlet. 
In  a  hundred  other  cases  the  same  truth  could  be  illus 
trated  ;  the  situation  in  which  the  black  man  first  assumes 
that  all  mankind  is  black,  and  then  accuses  the  rest  of 
the  artificial  vice  of  painting  their  faces  red  and  yellow, 
or  the  hypocrisy  of  white-washing  themselves  after  the 
fashion  of  whited  sepulchers.  The  particular  case  of 
it  now  before  us  is  that  of  the  English  misunderstanding 
of  America;  and  it  is  based,  as  in  all  these  cases,  on  the 
English  misunderstanding  of  England. 

For  the  truth  is  that  England  has  suffered  of  late  from 
not  having  enough  of  the  free  shooting  of  Hannibal 
Chollop ;  from  not  understanding  enough  that  the  libation 
of  freedom  must  sometimes  be  quaffed  in  blood.  The 
prosperous  Englishman  will  not  admit  this;  but  then 


254  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

the  prosperous  Englishman  will  not  admit  that  he  has  suf 
fered  from  anything.  That  is  what  he  is  suffering  from. 
Until  lately  at  least  he  refused  to  realise  that  many  of  his 
modern  habits  had  been  bad  habits,  the  worst  of  them 
being  contentment.  For  all  the  real  virtue  in  content 
ment  evaporates,  when  the  contentment  is  only  satisfac 
tion  and  the  satisfaction  is  only  self-satisfaction.  Now 
it  is  perfectly  true  that  America  and  not  England  has  seen 
the  most  obvious  and  outrageous  official  denials  of  liberty. 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  it  has  seen  the  most  obvious 
flouting  of  such  official  nonsense,  far  more  obvious  than 
any  similar  evasions  in  England.  And  nobody  who 
knows  the  subconscious  violence  of  the  American  charac 
ter  would  ever  be  surprised  if  the  weapons  of  Chollop 
began  to  be  used  in  that  most  lawful  lawlessness.  It  is 
perfectly  true  that  the  libation  of  freedom  must  some 
times  be  drunk  in  blood,  and  never  more  (one  would 
think)  than  when  mad  millionaires  forbid  it  to  be  drunk 
in  beer.  But  America,  as  compared  with  England,  is  the 
country  where  one  can  still  fancy  men  obtaining  the  liba 
tion  of  beer  by  the  libation  of  blood.  Vulgar  plutocracy 
is  almost  omnipotent  in  both  countries ;  but  I  think  there 
is  now  more  kick  of  reaction  against  it  in  America  than 
in  England.  The  Americans  may  go  mad  when  they 
make  laws ;  but  they  recover  their  reason  when  they  dis 
obey  them.  I  wish  I  could  believe  that  there  was  as 
much  of  that  destructive  repentance  in  England;  as  indeed 
there  certainly  was  when  Cobbett  wrote.  It  faded  gradu 
ally  like  a  dying  fire  through  the  Victorian  era;  and  it 
was  one  of  the  very  few  realities  that  Dickens  did  not 
understand.  But  any  one  who  does  understand  it  will 
know  that  the  days  of  Cobbett  saw  the  last  lost  fight  for 
English  democracy;  and  that  if  he  had  stood  at  that  turn- 


A  NEW  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT         255 

ing  of  the  historic  road,  he  would  have  wished  a  better 
fate  to  the  frame-breakers  and  the  fury  against  the  first 
machinery,  and  luck  to  the  Luddite  fires. 

Anyhow,  what  is  wanted  is  a  new  Martin  Chuzzelwit, 
told  by  a  wiser  Mark  Tapley.  It  is  typical  of  something 
sombre  and  occasionally  stale  in  the  mood  of  Dickens 
when  he  wrote  that  book,  that  the  comic  servant  is  not 
really  very  comic.  Mark  Tapley  is  a  very  thin  shadow 
of  Sam  Weller.  But  if  Dickens  had  written  it  in  a  hap 
pier  mood,  there  might  have  been  a  truer  meaning  in 
Mark  Tapley's  happiness.  For  it  is  true  that  this  illogi 
cal  good  humour  amid  unreason  and  disorder  is  one  of 
the  real  virtues  of  the  English  people.  It  is  the  real 
advantage  they  have  in  that  adventure  all  over  the  world, 
which  they  were  recently  and  reluctantly  induced  to  call 
an  Empire.  That  receptive  ridicule  remains  with  them 
as  a  secret  pleasure  when  they  are  colonists — or  convicts. 
Dickens  might  have  written  another  version  of  the  great 
romance,  and  one  in  which  America  was  really  seen  gaily 
by  Mark  instead  of  gloomily  by  Martin.  Mark  Tapley 
might  really  have  made  the  best  of  America.  Then 
America  would  have  lived  and  danced  before  us  like  Pick 
wick's  England,  a  fairyland  of  happy  lunatics  and  lovable 
monsters,  and  we  might  still  have  sympathised  as  much 
with  the  rhetoric  of  Lafayette  Kettle  as  with  the  rhetoric 
of  Wilkins  Micawber,  or  with  the  violence  of  Chollop  as 
with  the  violence  of  Boythorn.  That  new  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit  will  never  be  written;  and  the  loss  of  it  is  more 
tragic  than  the  loss  of  Edwin  Drood.  But  every  man 
who  has  travelled  in  America  has  seen  glimpses  and  epi 
sodes  in  that  untold  tale;  and  far  away  on  the  Red- 
Indian-  frontiers  or  in  the  hamlets  in  the  hills  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  there  are  people  whom  I  met  for  a  few  hours  or  a 


256  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

few  moments,  whom  I  none  the  less  sincerely  admire  and 
honour  because  I  cannot  but  smile  as  I  think  of  them.  But 
the  converse  is  also  true ;  they  have  probably  forgotten  me ; 
but  if  they  remember  they  laugh. 


THE  SPIRIT   OF  AMERICA 

**-"• •" '"***' 

I  SUGGEST  that  diplomatists  of  the  internationalist 
school  should  spend  some  of  their  money  on  staging 
farces  and  comedies  of  cross-purposes,  founded  on 
the  curious  and  prevalent  idea  that  England  and  Amer 
ica  have  the  same  language.  I  know,  of  course,  that  we 
both  inherit  the  glorious  tongue  of  Shakespeare,  not  to 
mention  the  tune  of  the  musical  glasses;  but  there  have 
been  moments  when  I  thought  that  if  we  spoke  Greek 
and  they  spoke  Latin  we  might  understand  each  other 
better.  For  Greek  and  Latin  are  at  least  fixed,  while 
American  at  least  is  still  very  fluid.  I  do  not  know  the 
American  language,  and  therefore  I  do  not  claim  to  dis 
tinguish  between  the  American  language  and  the  Ameri 
can  slang.  But  I  know  that  highly  theatrical  develop 
ments  might  follow  on  taking  the  words  as  part  of  the 
English  slang  or  the  English  language.  I  have  already 
given  the  example  of  calling  a  person  'a  regular  guy,' 
which  in  the  States  is  a  graceful  expression  of  respect 
and  esteem,  but  which  on  the  stage,  properly  handled, 
might  surely  lead  the  way  towards  a  divorce  or  duel  or 
something  lively.  Sometimes  coincidence  merely  clinches 
a  mistake,  as  it  often  clinches*  a  misprint.  Every  proof 
reader  knows  that  the  worst  misprint  is  not  that  which 
makes  nonsense  but  that  which  makes  sense;  not 
that  which  is  obviously  wrong  but  that  which  is  hid 
eously  right.  He  who  has  essayed  to  write  'he  got  the 
book/  and  has  found  it  rendered  mysteriously  as  'he  got 
the  boob'  is  pensively  resigned.  It  is  when  it  is  rendered 

257 


258  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

quite  lucidly  as  'he  got  the  boot'  that  he  is  moved  to  a 
more  passionate  mood  of  regret.  I  have  had  conver 
sations  in  which  this  sort  of  accident  would  have  wholly 
misled  me,  if  another  accident  had  not  come  to  the  res 
cue.  An  American  friend  of  mine  was  telling  me  of  his 
adventures  as  a  cinema-producer  down  in  the  south-west 
where  real  Red  Indians  were  procurable.  He  said  that 
certain  Indians  were  Very  bad  actors.'  It  passed  for  me 
as  a  very  ordinary  remark  on  a  very  ordinary  or  natural 
deficiency.  It  would  hardly  seem  a  crushing  criticism  to 
say  that  some  wild  Arab  chieftain  was  not  very  good  at 
imitating  a  farmyard ;  or  that  the  Grand  Llama  of  Thibet 
was  rather  clumsy  at  making  paper  boats.  But  the  re 
mark  might  be  natural  in  a  man  travelling  in  paper 
boats,  or  touring  with  an  invisible  farmyard-  for  his 
menagerie.  As  my  friend  was  a  cinema-producer,  I 
supposed  he  meant  that  the  Indians  were  bad  cinema  ac 
tors.  But  the  phrase  has  really  a  high  and  austere  moral 
meaning,  which  my  levity  had  wholly  missed.  A  bad 
actor  means  a  man  whose  actions  are  bad  or  morally  rep 
rehensible.  So  that  I  might  have  embraced  a  Red 
Indian  who  was  dripping  with  gore,  or  covered  with 
atrocious  crimes,  imagining  there  was  nothing  the  matter 
with  him  beyond  a  mistaken  choice  of  the  theatrical  pro 
fession.  Surely  there  are  here  the  elements  of  a  play, 
not  to  mention  a  cinema  play.  Surely  a  New  England 
village  maiden  might  find  herself  among  the  wigwams 
in  the  power  of  the  formidable  and  fiendish  Little  Blue 
Bison,  merely  through  her  mistaken  sympathy  with  his 
financial  failure  as  a  Film  Star.  The  notion  gives  me 
glimpses  of  all  sorts  of  dissolving  views  of  primeval 
forests  and  flamboyant  theatres;  but  this  impulse  of  ir 
relevant  theatrical  production  must  be  curbed.  There  is 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  259 

one  example,  however,  of  this  complication  of  language 
actually  used  in  contrary  senses,  about  which  the  same 
figure  can  be  used  to  illustrate  a  more  serious  fact. 

Suppose  that,  in  such  an  international  interlude,  an 
English  girl  and  an  American  girl  are  talking  about  the 
fiance  of  the  former,  who  is  coming  to  call.  The  English 
girl  will  be  haughty  and  aristocratic  (on  the  stage),  the 
American  girl  will  of  course  have  short  hair  and  skirts 
and  will  be  cynical;  Americans  being  more  completely 
free  from  cynicism  than  any  people  in  the  world.  It  is 
the  great  glory  of  Americans  that  they  are  not  cynical ; 
for  that  matter,  English  aristocrats  are  hardly  ever 
haughty ;  they  understand  the  game  much  better  than  that. 
But  on  the  stage,  anyhow,  the  American  girl  may  say,  re 
ferring  to  her  friend's  fiance,  with  a  cynical  wave  of  the 
cigarette,  'I  suppose  he's  bound  to  come  and  see  you/ 
And  at  this  the  blue  blood  of  the  Vere  de  Veres  will  boil 
over;  the  English  lady  will  be  deeply  wounded  and  in 
sulted  at  the  suggestion  that  her  lover  only  comes  to  see 
her  because  he  is  forced  to  do  so.  A  staggering  stage 
quarrel  will  then  ensue,  and  things  will  gof  from  bad  to 
worse ;  until  the  arrival  of  an  Interpreter  who  can  talk  both 
English  and  American.  He  stands  between  the  two 
ladies  waving  two  pocket  dictionaries,  and  explains  the 
error  on  which  the  quarrel  turns.  It  is  very  simple ;  like 
the  seed  of  all  tragedies.  In  English  'he  is  bound  to 
come  and  see  you'  means  that  he  is  obliged  or  constrained 
to  come  and  see  you.  In  American  it  does;  not.  In 
American  it  means  that  he  is  bent  on  coming  to  see  you, 
that  he  is  irrevocably  resolved  to  do  so,  and  will  sur 
mount  any  obstacle  to  do  it.  The  two  young  ladies  will 
then  embrace  as  the  curtain  falls. 

Now  when  I  was  lecturing  in  America  I  was  often 


2<5o  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

told,  in  a  radiant  and  congratulatory  manner,  that  such 
and  such  a  person  was  bound  to  come  and  hear  me 
lecture.  It  seemed  a  very  cruel  form  of  conscription, 
and  I  could  not  understand  what  authority  could  have 
made  it  compulsory.  In  the  course  of  discovering  my 
error,  however,  I  thought  I  began  to  understand  certain 
American  ideas  and  instincts  that  lie  behind  this  Amer 
ican  idiom.  For  as  I  have  urged  before,  and  shall  often 
urge  again,  the  road  to  international  friendship  is 
through  really  understanding  jokes.  It  is  in  a  sense 
through  taking  jokes  seriously.  It  is  quite  legitimate  to 
laugh  at  a  man  who  walks  down  the  street  in  three  white 
hats  and  a  green  dressing  gown,  because  it  is  unfamiliar; 
but  after  all  the  man  has  some  reason  for  what  he  does ; 
and  until  we  know  the  reason  we  do  not  understand  the 
story,  or  even  understand  the  joke.  So  the  outlander 
will  always  seem  outlandish  in  custom  or  costume;  but 
serious  relations  depend  on  our  getting  beyond  the  fact 
of  difference  to  the  things  wherein  it  differs.  A  good 
symbolical  figure  for  all  this  may  be  found  among  the 
people  who  say,  perhaps  with  a  self -revealing  simplicity, 
that  they  are  bound  to  go  to  a  lecture. 

If  I  were  asked  for  a  single  symbolic  figure  summing 
up  the  whole  of  what  seems  eccentric  and  interesting 
about  America  to  an  Englishman,  I  should  be  satisfied 
to  select  that  one  lady  who  complained  of  Mrs.  Asquith's 
lecture  and  wanted  her  money  back.  I  do  not  mean 
that  she  was  typically  American  in  complaining ;  far  from 
it.  I,  for  one,  have  a  great  and  guilty  knowledge  of  all 
that  amiable  American  audiences  will  endure  without 
complaint.  I  do  not  mean  that  she  was  typically  Amer 
ican  in  wanting  her  money;  quite  the  contrary.  That 
sort  of  American  spends  money  rather  than  hoards  it; 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  261 

and  when  we  convict  them  of  vulgarity  we  acquit  them  of 
avarice.  Where  she  was  typically  American,  summing 
up  a  truth  individual  and  indescribable  in  any  other  way, 
is  that  she  used  these  words :  Tve  risen  from  a  sick-bed 
to  come  and  hear  her,  and  I  want  my  money  back.' 

The  element  in  that  which  really  amuses  an  English 
man  is  precisely  the  element  which,  properly  analysed, 
ought  to  make  him  admire  an  American.  But  my  point 
is  that  only  by  going  through  the  amusement  can  he 
reach  the  admiration.  The  amusement  is  in  the  vision 
of  a  tragic  sacrifice  for  what  is  avowedly  a  rather  trivial 
object.  Mrs.  Asquith  is  a  candid  lady  of  considerable 
humour;  and  I  feel  sure  she  does  not  regard  the  experi 
ence  of  hearing  her  read  her  diary  as  an  ecstasy  for 
which  the  sick  should  thus  suffer  martyrdom.  She  also 
is  English;  and  had  no  other  claim  but  to  amuse  Amer 
icans  and  possibly  to  be  amused  by  them.  This  being 
so,  it  is  rather  as  if  somebody  said,  'I  have  risked  my 
life  in  fire  and  pestilence  to  find  my  way  to  the  music 
hall,'  or,  'I  have  fasted  forty  days  in  the  wilderness  sus-/ 
tained  by  the  hope  of  seeing  Totty  Toddles  do  her  new 
dance.'  And  there  is  something  rather  more  subtle  in 
volved  here.  There  is  something  in  an  Englishman 
which  would  make  him  feel  faintly  ashamed  of  saying 
that  he  had  fasted  to  hear  Totty  Toddles,  or  risen  from 
a  sick-bed  to  hear  Mrs.  Asquith.  He  would  feel  it  was 
undignified  to  confess  that  he  had  wanted  mere  amuse 
ment  so  much ;  and  perhaps  that  he  had  wanted  anything 
so  much.  He  would  not  like,  so  to  speak,  to  be  seen 
rushing  down  the  street  after  Totty  Toddles,  or  after 
Mrs.  Asquith,  or  perhaps  after  anybody.  But  there  is 
something  in  it  distinct  from  a  mere  embarrassment  at 
admitting  enthusiasm.  He  might  admit  the  enthusiasm 


262  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

if  the  object  seemed  to  justify  it;  he  might  perfectly  well 
be  serious  about  a  serious  thing.  But  he  cannot  under 
stand  a  person  being  proud  of  serious  sacrifices  for  what 
is  not  a  serious  thing.  He  does  not  like  to  admit  that 
a  little  thing  can  excite  him;  that  he  can  lose  his  breath 
in  running,  or  lose  his  balance  in  reaching,  after  some 
thing  that  might  be  called  silly. 

Now  that  is  where  the  American  is  fundamentally 
different.  To  him  the  enthusiasm  itself  is  meritorious. 
To  him  the  excitement  itself  is  dignified.  He  counts  it 
a  part  of  his  manhood  to  fast  or  fight  or  rise  from  a  bed 
of  sickness  for  something,  or  possibly  for  anything.  His 
ideal  is  not  to  be  a  lock  that  only  a  worthy  key  can  open, 
but  a  'live  wire'  that  anything  can  touch  or  anybody  can 
use.  In  a  word,  there  is  a  difference  in  the  very  defi 
nition  of  virility  and  therefore  of  virtue.  A  live  wire  is 
not  only  active,  it  is  also  sensitive.  Thus  sensibility  be 
comes  actually  a  part  of  virility.  Something  more  is 
involved  than  the  vulgar  simplification  of  the  American 
as  the  irresistible  force  and  the  Englishman  as  the  im 
movable  post.  As  a  fact,  those  who  speak  of  such  things 
nowadays  generally  mean  by  something  irresistible  some 
thing  simply  immovable,  or  at  least  something  unalter 
able,  motionless  even  in  motion,  like  a  cannon  ball ;  for 
a  cannon  ball  is  as  dead  as  a  cannon.  Prussian  mili 
tarism  was  praised  in  that  way — until  it  met  a  French 
force  of  about  half  its  size  on  the  banks  of  the  Marne. 
But  that  is  not  what  an  American  means  by  energy; 
that  sort  of  Prussian  energy  is  only  monotony  without 
repose.  American  energy  is  not  a  soulless  machine;  for 
it  is  the  whole  point  that  he  puts  his  soul  into  it.  It  is 
a  very  small  box  for  so  big  a  thing;  but  it  is  not  an 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  263 

empty  box.  But  the  point  is  that  he  is  not  only  proud 
of  his  energy,  he  is  proud  of  his  excitement.  He  is  not 
ashamed  of  his  emotion,  of  the  fire  or  even  the  tear  in 
him  manly  eye,  when  he  tells  you  that  the  great  wheel 
of  his  machine  breaks  four  billion  butterflies  an  hour. 

That  is  the  point  about  American  sport;  that  it  is  not 
in  the  least  sportive.  It  is  because  it  is  not  very  sportive 
that  we  sometimes  say  it  is  not  very  sporting.  It  has  the 
vices  of  a  religion.  It  has  all  the  paradox  of  original 
sin  in  the  service  of  aboriginal  faith.  It  is  sometimes 
untruthful  because  it  is  sincere.  It  is  sometimes  treach 
erous  because  it  is  loyal.  Men  lie  and  cheat  for  it  as  they 
lied  for  their  lords  in  a  feudal  conspiracy,  or  cheated  for 
their  chieftains  in  a  Highland  feud.  We  may  say  that 
the  vassal  readily  committed  treason;  but  it  is  equally 
true  that  he  readily  endured  torture.  So  does  the 
American  athlete  endure  torture.  Not  only  the  self-sacri 
fice  but/the  solemnity  of  the  American  athlete  is  like  that 
of  the  American  Indian.  The  athletes  in  the  States  have 
the  attitude  of  the  athletes  among  the  Spartans,  the  great 
historical  nation  without  a  sense  of  humour.  They  suffer 
an  ascetic  regime  not  to  be  matched  in  any  monasticism 
and  hardly  in  any  militarism.  If  any  tradition  of  these 
things  remains  in  a  saner  age,  they  will  probably  be  re 
membered  as  a  mysterious  religious  order  of  fakirs  or 
dancing  dervishes,  who  shaved  their  heads  and  fasted 
in  honour  of  Hercules  or  Caster  and  Pollux.  And  that 
is  really  the  spiritual  atmosphere  though  the  Gods  have 
vanished;  and  the  religion  is  subconscious  and  therefore 
irrational.  For  the  problem  of  the  modern  world  is  that 
is  has  continued  to  be  religious  when  it  has  ceased  to  be 
rational.  Americans  really  would  starve  to  win  a  cocoa- 


264  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

nut  shy.  They  would  fast  or  bleed  to  win  a  race  of 
paper  boats  on  a  pond.  They  would  rise  from  a  sick-bed 
to  listen  to  Mrs.  Asquith. 

But  it  is  the  real  reason  that  interests  me  here.  It 
is  certainly  not  that  Americans  are  so  stupid  as  not  to 
know  that  cocoa-nuts  are  only  cocoa-nuts  and  paper  boats 
only  made  of  paper.  Americans  are,  on  an  average, 
rather  more  intelligent  than  Englishmen;  and  they  are 
well  aware  that  Hercules  is  a  myth  and  that  Mrs.  Asquith 
is  something  of  a  mythologist.  It  is  not  that  they  do  not 
know  that  the  object  is  small  in  itself;  it  is  that  they  do 
really  believe  that  the  enthusiasm  is  great  in  itself.  They 
admire  people  for  being  impressionable.  They  admire 
people  for  being  excited.  An  American  so  struggling 
for  some  disproportionate  trifle  (like  one  of  my  lectures) 
really  feels  in  a  mystical  way  that  he  is  right,  because 
it  is  his  whole  morality  to  be  keen.  So  long  as  he  wants 
something  very  much,  whatever  it  is,  he  feels  he  has 
his  conscience  behind  him,  and  the  common  sentiment  of 
society  behind  him,  and  God  and  the  whole  universe  be 
hind  him.  Wedged  on  one  leg  in  a  hot  crowd  at  a 
trivial  lecture,  he  has  self-respect;  his  dignity  is  at  rest. 
That  is  what  he  means  when  he  says  he  is  bound  to 
come  to  the  lecture. 

Now  the  Englishman  is  fond  of  occasional  larks. 
But  these  things  are  not  larks;  nor  are  they  occasional. 
It  is  the  essential  of  the  Englishman's  lark  that  he  should 
think  it  a  lark;  that  he  should  laugh  at  it  even  when  he 
does  it.  Being  English  myself,  I  like  it ;  but  being  Eng 
lish  myself,  I  know  it  is  connected  with  weaknesses  as 
well  as  merits.  In  its  irony  there  is  condescension  and 
therefore  embarrassment.  This  patronage  is  allied  to  the 
patron,  and  the  patron  is  allied  to  the  aristocratic  tradi- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  265 

tion  of  society.  The  larks  are  a  variant  of  laziness  be 
cause  of  leisure;  and  the  leisure  is  a  variant  of  the  secur 
ity  and  even  supremacy  of  the  gentleman.  When  an 
undergraduate  at  Oxford  smashes  half  a  hundred  win 
dows,  he  is  well  aware  that  the  incident  is  merely  a 
trifle.  He  can  be  trusted  to  explain  to  his  parents  and 
guardians  that  it  was  merely  a  trifle.  He  does  not  say, 
even  in  the  American  sense,  that  he  was  bound  to  smash 
the  windows.  He  does  not  say  that  he  had  risen  from  a 
sick-bed  to  smash  the  windows.  He  does  not  especially 
think  he  has  risen  at  all;  he  knows  he  has  descended 
(though  with  delight,  like  one  diving  or  sliding  down  the 
banisters)  to  something  flat  and  farcical  and  full  of  the 
'English  taste  for  the  bathos.  He  has  collapsed  into 
something  entirely  commonplace;  though  the  owners  of 
the  windows  may  possibly  not  think  so.  This  rather  in 
describable  element  runs  through  a  hundred  English 
things,  as  in  the  love  of  bathos  shown  even  in  the  sound 
of  proper  names;  so  that  even  the  yearning  lover  in  a 
lyric  yearns  for  somebody  named  Sally  rather  than 
Salome,  and  for  a  place  called  Wapping  rather  than  a 
place  called  Westermain.  Even  in  the  relapse  into 
rowdiness  there  is  a  sort  of  relapse  into  comfort.  There 
is  also  what  is  so  large  a  part  of  comfort;  carelessness. 
The  undergraduate  breaks  windows  because  he  does  not 
care  about  windows,  not  because  .he  does  care  about  more 
fresh  air  like  a  hygienist,  or  about  more  light  like  a  Ger 
man  poet.  Still  less  does  he  heroically  smash  a  hundred 
windows  because  they  come  between  him  and  the  voice 
of  Mrs.  Asquith.  But  least  of  all  does  he  do  it  because 
he  seriously  prides  himself  on  the  energy  apart  from  its 
aim,  and  on  the  will-power  that  carries  it  through.  He 
is  not  'bound  to  smash  the  windows,  even  in  the  sense 


266  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  being  bent  upon  it.  He  is  not  bound  at  all  but  rather 
relaxed;  and  his  violence  is  not  only  a  relaxation  but  a 
laxity.  Finally,  this  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  he  only 
smashes  windows  when  he  is  in  the  mood  to  smash 
windows;  when  some  fortunate  conjunction  of  stars 
and  all  the  tints  and  nuances  of  nature  whisper  to 
him  that  it  would  be  well  to  smash  windows.  But  the 
American  is  always  ready,  at  any  moment,  to  waste  his 
energies  on  the  wilder  and  more  suicidal  course  of  going 
to  lectures.  And  this  is  because  to  him  such  excitement 
is  not  a  mood  but  a  moral  ideal.  As  I  note  in  another 
connection,  much  of  the  English  mystery  would  be  clear 
to  Americans  if  they  understood  the  word  'mood.' 
Englishmen  are  very  moody,  especially  when  they  smash 
windows.  But  I  doubt  if  many  Americans  understand 
exactly  what  we  mean  by  the  mood ;  especially  the  passive 
mood. 

It  is  only  by  trying  to  get  some  notion  of  all  this  that 
an  Englishman  can  enjoy  the  final  crown  and  fruit  of  all 
international  friendship ;  which  is  really  liking  an  Ameri 
can  to  be  American.  If  we  only  think  that  parts  of  him 
are  excellent  because  parts  of  him  are  English,  it  would 
be  far  more  sensible  to  stop  at.  home  and  possibly  enjoy 
the  society  of  a  whole  complete  Englishman.  But  any 
body  who  does  understand  this  can  take  the  same  pleasure 
in  an  American  being  American  that  he  does  in  a 
thunderbolt  being  swift  and  a  barometer  being  sensitive. 
He  can  see  that  a  vivid  sensibility  and  vigilance  really 
radiate  outwards  through  all  the  ramifications  of 
machinery  and  even  of  materialism.  He  can  see 
that  the  American  uses  his  great  practical,  powers 
upon  very  small  provocation;  but  he  can  also 
see  that  there  is  a  kind  of  sense  of  honour,  like  that  of  a 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  267 

duellist,  in  his  readiness  to  be  provoked.  Indeed,  there 
is  some  parallel  between  the  American  man  of  action, 
however  vulgar  his  aims,  and  the  old  feudal,  idea  of  the 
gentleman  with  a  sword  at  his  side.  The  gentleman  may 
have  been  proud  of  being  strong  or  sturdy;  he  may  too 
often  have  been  proud  of  being  thick-headed ;  but  he  was 
not  proud  of  being  thick-skinned.  On  the  contrary,  he 
was  proud  of  being  thin-skinned.  He  also  seriously 
thought  that  sensitiveness  was  a  part  of  masculinity.  It 
may  be  very  absurd  to  read  of  two  Irish  gentlemen  try 
ing  to  kill  each  other  for  trifles,  or  of  two  Irish- Ameri 
can  millionaires  trying  to  ruin  each  other  for  trash.  But 
the  very  pettiness  of  the  pretext  and  even  the  purpose 
illustrates  the  same  conception;  which  may  be  called  the 
virtue  of  excitability.  And  it  is  really  this,  and  not  any 
rubbish  about  iron  will-power  and  masterful  mentality, 
that  redeems  with  romance  their  clockwork  cosmos  and 
its  industrial  ideals.  Being  a  live  wire  does  not  mean  that 
the  nerves  should  be  like  wires;  but  rather  that  the  very 
wires  should  be  like  nerves. 

Another  approximation  to  the  truth  would  be  to  say  that 
an  American  is  really  not  ashamed  of  curiosity.  It  is  not 
so  simple  as  it  looks.  Men  will  carry  off  curiosity  with 
various  kinds  of  laughter  and  bravado,  just  as  they  will 
carry  off  drunkenness  or  bankruptcy.  But  very  few  peo 
ple  are  really  proud  of  lying  on  a  door-step,  and  very  few 
people  are  really  proud  of  longing  to  look  through  a  key 
hole.  I  do  not  speak  of  looking  through  it,  which 
involves  questions  of  honour  and  self-control;  but  few 
people  feel  that  even  the  desire  is  dignified.  Now 
I  fancy  the  American,  at  least  by  comparison  with 
the  Englishman,  does  feel  that  his  curiosity  is  consistent 
•with  his  dignity,  because  dignity  is  consistent  with 


268  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

vivacity.  He  feels  it  is  not  merely  the  curiosity 
of  Paul  Pry,  but  the  curiosity  of  Christopher  Columbus. 
He  is  not  a  spy  but  an  explorer;  and  he  feels 
his  greatness  rather  grow  with  his  refusal  to  turn  back, 
as  a  traveller  might  feel  taller  and  taller  as  he  neared  the 
source  of  the  Nile  or  the  North-West  passage.  Many 
an  Englishman  has  had  that  feeling  about  discoveries  in 
dark  continents;  but  he  does  not  often  have  it  about  dis 
coveries  in  daily  life.  The  one  type  does  believe  in  the 
indignity  and  the  other  in  the  dignity  of  the  detective. 
It  has  nothing  to  do  with  ethics  in  the  merely  external 
sense.  It  involves  no  particular  comparison  in  practical 
morals  and  manners.  It  is  something  in  the  whole  poise 
and  posture  of  the  self ;  of  the  way  a  man  carries  himself. 
For  men  are  not  only  affected  by  what  they  are ;  but  still 
more,  when  they  are  fools,  by  what  they  think  they  are ; 
and  when  they  are  wise,  by  what  they  wish  to  be. 

There  are  truths  that  have  almost  become  untrue  by 
becoming  untruthful.  There  are  statements  so  often  stale 
and  insincere  that  one  hesitates  to  use  them,  even  when 
they  stand  for  something  more  subtle.  This  point  about 
curiosity  is  not  the  conventional  complaint  against  the 
American  interviewer.  It  is  not  the  ordinary  joke  against 
the  American  child.  And  in  the  same  way  I  feel  the  dan 
ger  of  it  being  identified  with  the  cant  about  'a  young 
nation'  if  I  say  that  it  has  some  of  the  attractions,  not  of. 
American  childhood,  but  of  real  childhood.  There  is 
some  truth  in  the  tradition  that  the  children  of  wealthy 
Americans  tend  to  be  too  precocious  and  luxurious.  But 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  we  can  really  say  that  if  the  chil 
dren  are  like  adults,  the  adults  are  like  children.  And  that 
sense  is  in  the  very  best  sense  of  childhood.  It  is  some 
thing  which  the  modern  world  does  not  understand. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICA  269 

It  is  something  that  modern  Americans  do  not  under 
stand,  even  when  they  possess  it;  but  I  think  they  do 
possess  it. 

The  devil  can  quote  Scripture  for  his  purpose ;  and  the 
text  of  Scripture  which  he  now  most  commonly  quotes 
is,  'The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  you.'  That  text 
has  been  the  stay  and  support  of  more  Pharisees  and  prigs 
and  self-righteous  spiritual  bullies  than  all  the  dogmas 
in  creation;  it  has  served  to  identify  self-satisfaction 
with  the  peace  that  passes  all  understanding.  And  the 
text  to  be  quoted  in  answer  to  it  is  that  which  declares 
that  no  man  can  receive  the  kingdom  except  as  a  little 
child.  What  we  are  to  have  inside  is  the  childlike  spirit ; 
but  the  childlike  spirit  is  not  entirely  concerned  about 
what  is  inside.  It  is  the  first  mark  of  possessing  it  that 
one  is  interested  in  what  is  outside.  The  most  childlike 
thing  about  a  child  is  his  curiosity  and  his  appetite  and 
his  power  of  wonder  at  the  world.  We  might  almost 
say  that  the  whole  advantage  of  having  the  kingdom 
within  is  that  we  look  for  it  somewhere  else. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND 

NINE  times  out  of  ten  a  man's  broad-mindedness 
is  necessarily  the  narrowest  thing  about  him. 
This  is  not  particularly  paradoxical ;  it  is,  when 
we  come  to  think  of  it,  quite  inevitable.  His  vision  of 
his  own  village  may  really  be  full  of  varieties ;  and  even 
his  vision  of  his  own  nation  may  have  a  rough  resem 
blance  to  the  reality.  But  his  vision  of  the  world  is 
probably  smaller  than  the  world.  His  vision  of  the 
universe  is  certainly  much  smaller  than  the  universe. 
Hence  he  is  never  so  inadequate  as  when  he  is  universal ; 
he  is  never  so  limited  as  when  he  generalises.  This 
is  the  fallacy  in  many  modern  attempts  at  a  creedless 
creed,  at  something  variously  described  as  essential 
Christianity  or  undenominational  religion  or  a  world 
faith  to  embrace  all  the  faiths  in  the  world.  It  is  that 
every  sectarian  is  more  sectarian  in  his  unsectarianism 
than  he  is  in  his  sect.  The  emancipation  of  a  Baptist 
is  a  very  Baptist  emancipation.  The  charity  of  a 
Buddhist  is  a  very  Buddhist  charity,  and  very  different 
from  Christian  charity.  When  a  philosophy  embraces 
everything  it  generally  squeezes  everything,  and  squeezes 
it  out  of  shape;  when  it  digests  it  necessarily  assimilates. 
When  a  theosophist  absorbs  Christianity  it  is  rather  as  a 
cannibal  absorbs  Christian  missionaries.  In  this 
sense  it  is  even  possible  for  the  larger  thing  to  be 
swallowed  by  the  smaller;  and  for  men  to  move  about 
not  only  in  a  Clapham  sect  but  in  a  Clapham  cosmos  under 
Clapham  moon  and  stars. 
But  if  this  danger  exists  for  all  men,  it  exists  espe- 

270 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  271 

daily  for  the  Englishman.  The  Englishman  is  never  so 
insular  as  when  he  is  imperial ;  except  indeed  when  he  is 
international.  In  private  life  he  is  a  good  friend  and  in 
practical  politics  often  a  very  good  ally.  But  theoretical 
politics  are  more  practical  than  practical  politics.  And  in 
theoretical  politics  the  Englishman  is  the  worst  ally  the 
world  ever  saw.  This  is  all  the  more  curious  because  he 
has  passed  so  much  of  his  historical  life  in  the  character 
of  an  ally.  He  has  been  in  twenty  great  alliances  and 
never  understood  one  of  them.  He  has  never  been  far 
ther  away  from  European  politics  than  when  he  was  fight 
ing  heroically  in  the  thick  of  them.  I  myself  think  that 
this  splendid  isolation  is  sometimes  really  splendid;  so 
long  as  it  is  isolation  and  does  not  imagine  itself  -to  be 
imperialism  or  internationalism.  With  the  idea  of  being 
international,  with  the  idea  of  being  imperial,  comes  the 
frantic  and  farcical  idea  of  being  impartial.  Generally 
speaking,  men  are  never  so  mean  and  false  and  hypocriti 
cal  as  when  they  are  occupied  in  being  impartial.  They 
are  performing  the  first  and  most  typical  of  all  the  actions 
of  the  devil ;  they  are  claiming  the  throne  of  God.  Even 
when  it  is  not  hypotrisy  but  only  mental  confusion,  it  is 
always  a  confusion  worse  and  worse  confounded.  We 
see  it  in  the  impartial  historians  of  the  Victorian  Age, 
who  now  seem  far  more  Victorian  than  the  partial 
historians.  Hallam  wrote  about  the  Middle  Ages;  but 
Hallam  was  far  less  mediaeval  than  Macaulay;  for 
Macaulay  was  at  least  a  fighter.  Huxley  had  more 
mediaeval  sympathies  than  Herbert  Spencer  for  the 
same  reason;  that  Huxley  was  a  fighter.  They  both 
fought  in  many  ways  for  the  limitations  of  their 
own  rationalistic  epoch;  but  they  were  nearer  the  truth 
than  the  men  who  simply  assumed  those  limitations 


272  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

as  rational.  The  war  of  the  controversionalists  was 
a  wider  thing  than  the  peace  of  the  arbiters.  And 
in  the  same  way  the  Englishman  never  cuts  a  less  con 
vincing  figure  before  other  nations  than  when  he  tries  to 
arbitrate  between  them. 

I  have  by  this  time  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  necessity 
of  saving  Anglo-American  friendship,  a  necessity  which 
I  myself  feel  rather  too  strongly  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
ambassadorial  and  editorial  style  of  achieving  it.  I  repeat 
that  the  worst  road  to  Anglo-American  friendship  is  to 
be  Anglo-American;  or,  as  the  more  illiterate  would  ex 
press,  to  be  Anglo-Saxon.  I  am  more  and  more  con 
vinced  that  the  way  for  the  Englishman  to  do  it  is  to  be 
English;  but  to  know  that  he  is  English  and  not  every 
thing  else  as  well.  Thus  the  only  sincere  answer  to  Irish 
nationalism  is  English  nationalism,  which  is  a  reality; 
and  not  English  imperialism,  which  is  a  reactionary  fic 
tion,  or  English  internationalism,  which  is  a  revolutionary 
one. 

For  the  English  are  reviled  for  their  imperialism  be 
cause  they  are  not  imperialistic.  They  dislike  it,  which 
is  the  real  reason  why  they  do  it  badly;  and  they  do  it 
badly,  which  is  the  real  reason  why  they  are  disliked  when 
they  do  it.  Nobody  calls  France  imperialistic  because 
she  has  absorbed  Brittany.  But  everybody  calls  England 
imperialistic  because  she  has  not  absorbed  Ireland.  The 
Englishman  is  fixed  and  frozen  for  ever  in  the  attitude  of 
a  ruthless  conqueror;  not  because  he  has  conquered  such 
people  but  because  he  has  not  conquered  them ;  but  he  is 
always  trying  to  conquer  them  with  a  heroism  worthy 
of  a  better  cause.  For  the  really  native  and  vigorous 
part  of  what  is  unfortunately  called  the  British  Empire 
is  not  an  empire  at  all,  and  does  not  consist  of  these 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  273 

conquered  provinces  at  all.  It  is  not  an  empire  but  an 
adventure;  which  is  probably  a  much  finer  thing.  It 
was  not  the  power  of  making  strange  countries  similar 
to  our  own,  but  simply  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
strange  countries  because  they  were  different  from  our 
own.  The  adventurer  did  indeed,  like  the  third  son,  set 
out  to  seek  his  fortune,  but  not  primarily  to  alter  other 
people's  fortunes;  he  wished  to  trade  with  people  rather 
than  to  rule  them.  But  as  the  other  people  remained 
different  from  him,  so  did  he  remain  different  from  them. 
The  adventurer  saw  a  thousand  strange  things  and  re 
mained  a  stranger.  He  was  the  Robinson  Crusoe 
on  a  hundred  desert  islands;  and  on  each  he  remained 
as  insular  as  on  his*  own  island. 

What  is  wanted  for  the  cause  of  England  to-day  is  an 
Englishman  with  enough  imagination  to  love  his  country 
from  the  outside  as  well  as  the  inside.  That  is,  we  need 
somebody  who  will  do  for  the  English  what  has  never 
been  done  for  them,  but  what  is  done  for  any  outlandish 
peasantry  or  even  any  savage  tribe.  We  want  people  who 
can  make  England  attractive;  quite  apart  from  disputes 
about  whether  England  is  strong  or  weak.  We  want 
somebody  to  explain,  not  that  England  is  everywhere, 
but  what  England  is  anywhere ;  not  that  England  is  or  is 
not  really  dying,  but  why  we  do  not  want  her  to  die.  For 
this  purpose  the  official  and  conventional  compliments  or 
claims  can  never  get  any  farther  than  pompous  abstrac 
tions  about  Law  and  Justice  and  Truth ;  the  ideals  which 
England  accepts  as  every  civilised  state  accepts  them, 
and  violates  as  every  civilised  state  violates  them.  That 
is  not  the  way  in  which  the  picture  of  any  people  has  ever 
been  painted  on  the  sympathetic  imagination  of  the  world. 
Enthusiasts  for  old  Japan  did  not  tell  us  that  the  Japs 


274  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

recognised  the  existence  of  abstract  morality;  but  that 
they  lived  in  paper  houses  or  wrote  letters  with  paint 
brushes.  Men  who  wished  to  interest  us  in  Arabs  did  not 
confine  themselves  to  saying  that  they  are  monotheists  or 
moralists;  they  filled  our  romances  with  the  rush  of  Arab 
steeds  or  the  colours  of  strange  tents  or  carpets.  What 
we  want  is  somebody  who  will  do  for  the  Englishman 
with  his  front  garden  what  was  done  for  the  Jap  and  his 
paper  house;  who  shall  understand  the  Englishman  with 
his  dog  as  well  as  the  Arab  with  his  horse.  In  a  word, 
what  nobody  has  really  tried  to  do  is  the  one  thing  that 
really  wants  doing.  It  is  to  make  England  attractive  as 
a  nationality,  and  even  as  a  small  nationality. 

For  it  is  a  wild  folly  to  suppose  that  nations  will  love 
each  other  because  they  are  alike.  They  will  never 
really  do  that  unless  they  are  really  alike;  and  then  they 
will  not  be  nations.  Nations  can  love  each  other  as  men 
and  women  love  each  other,  not  because  they  are  alike  but 
because  they  are  different.  It  can  easily  be  shown,  I 
fancy,  that  in  every  case  where  a  real  public  sympathy 
was  aroused  for  some  unfortunate  foreign  people,  it  has 
always  been  accompanied  with  a  particular  and  positive 
interest  in  their  most  foreign  customs  and  their  most 
foreign  externals.  The  man  who  made  a  romance  of  the 
Scotch  Highlander  made  a  romance  of  his  kilt  and  even 
of  his  dirk ;  the  friend  of  the  Red  Indians  was  interested 
in  picture  writing  and  had  some  tendency  to  be  interested 
in  scalping.  To  take  a  more  serious  example,  such  na 
tions  as  Serbia  had  been  largely  commended  to  inter 
national  consideration  by  the  study  of  Serbian  epics  or 
Serbian  songs.  The  epoch  of  negro  emancipation  was 
also  the  epoch  of  negro  melodies.  Those  who  wept  over 
Uncle  Tom  also  laughed  over  Uncle  Remus.  And  just 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  275 

as  the  admiration  for  the  Redskin  almost  became  an  apol 
ogy  for  scalping,  the  mysterious  fascination  of  the  Afri 
can  has  sometimes  almost  led  us  into  the  fringes  of  the 
black  forest  of  Voodoo.  But  the  sort  of  interest  that  is 
felt  even  in  the  scalp-hunter  and  the  cannibal,  the  torturer 
and  the  devil-worshipper,  that  sort  of  interest  has  never 
been  felt  in  the  Englishman. 

And  this  is1  the  more  extraordinary  because  the  English 
man  is  really  very  interesting.  He  is  interesting  in  a 
special  degree  in  this  special  manner;  he  is  interesting 
because  he  is  individual.  No  man  in  the  world  is  more 
misrepresented  by  everything  official  or  even  in  the  ordi 
nary  sense  national.  A  description  of  English  life  must 
be  a  description  of  private  life.  In  that  sense  there  is  no 
public  life.  In  that  sense  there  is  no  public  opinion. 
There  have  never  been  those  prairie  fires  of  public  opinion 
in  England  which  often  sweep  over  America.  At  any 
rate,  there  have  never  been  any  such  popular  revolutions 
since  the  popular  revolutions  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
English  are  a  nation  of  amateurs;  they  are  even  a  nation 
of  eccentrics.  An  Englishman  is  never  more  English 
than  when  he  is  considered  a  lunatic  by  the  other  English 
men.  This  can  be  clearly  seen  in  a  figure  like  Dr.  John 
son,  who  has  become  national  not  by  being  normal  but 
by  being  extraordinary.  To  express  this  mysterious 
people,  to  explain  or  suggest  why  they  like  tall  hedges 
and  heavy  breakfasts  and  crooked  roads  and  small  gar 
dens  with  large  fences,  and  why  they  alone  among  Chris 
tians  have  kept  quite  consistently  the  great  Christian 
glory  of  the  open  fireplace,  here  would  be  a  strange  and 
stimulating  opportunity  for  any  of  the  artists  in  words, 
who  study  the  souls  of  strange  peoples.  That  would 
be  the  true  way  to  create  a  friendship  between  England 


276  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

and  America,  or  between  England  and  anything  else ;  yes, 
even  between  England  and  Ireland.  For  this  justice  at 
least  has  already  been  done  to  Ireland;  and  as  an  in 
dignant  patriot  I  demand  a  more  equal  treatment  for  the 
tiwo  nations.  : 

I  have  already  noted  the  commonplace  that  in  order 
to  teach  internationalism  we  must  talk  nationalism.  We 
must  make  the  nations  as  nations  less  odious  or  mysterious 
to  each  other.  We  do  not  make  men  love  each  other  by 
describing  a  monster  with  a  million  arms  and  legs  but  by 
describing  the  men  as  men,  with  their  separate  and  even 
solitary  emotions.  As  this  has  a  particular  application 
to  the  emotions  of  the  Englishman,  I  will  expand  the 
topic  yet  further.  Now  Americans  have  a  power  that  is 
the  soul  and  success  of  democracy,  the  power  of  spontane 
ous  social  organisation.  Their  high  spirits,  their  humane 
ideals,  are  really  creative,  they  abound  in  unofficial  institu 
tions  ;  we  might  almost  say  in  unofficial  officialism-.  No 
body  who  has  felt  the  presence  of  all  the  leagues  and  guilds 
and  college  clubs  will  deny  that  Whitman  was  national 
when  he  said  he  would  build  states  and  cities  out  of  the 
love  of  comrades.  When  all  this  communal  enthusiasm 
collides  with  the  Englishman,  it  too  often  seems  literally 
to  leave  him  cold.  They  say  he  is  reserved ;  they  possibly 
think  he  is  rude.  And  jthe  Englishman,  having  been 
taught  his  own  history  all  wrong,  is  only  too  likely  to  take 
the  criticism  as  a  compliment.  He  admits  that  he  is  re 
served  because  he  is  stern  and  strong;  or  even  that  he  is 
rude  because  he  is  shrewd  and  candid.  But  as  a  fact  he 
is  not  rude  and  not  especially  reserved;  at  least  reserve 
is  not  the  meaning  of  his  reluctance.  The  real  difference 
lies,  I  think,  in  the  fact  that  American  high  spirits  are  not 
only  high  but  level;  that  the  hilarious  American  spirit  is 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  277 

like  a  plateau,  and  the  humorous  English  spirit  like  a 
ragged  mountain  range. ' 

The  Englishman  is  m6ody;  which  does  not  in  the  least 
mean  that  the  Englishman  is  morose.  Dickens,  as  we  all 
feel  in  reading  his  books,  was  boisterously  English. 
Dickens  was  moody  when  he  wrote  Oliver  Tzuist;  but  he 
was  also  moody  when  he  wrote  Pickwick.  That  is,  he 
was  in  another  and  much  healthier  mood.  The  mood 
was  normal  to  him  in  the  sense  that  nine  times  out  of  ten 
he  felt  and  wrote  in  that  humorous  and  hilarious  mood. 
But  he  was,  if  ever  there  was  one,  a  man  of  moods;  and 
all  the  more  of  a  typical  Englishman  for  being  a  man  of 
moods.  But  it  was  because  of  this,  almost  entirely,  that 
he  had  a  misunderstanding  with  America. 

In  America  there  are  no  moods,  or  there  is  only  one 
mood.  It  is  the  same  whether  it  is  called  hustle  or  uplift; 
whether  we  regard  it  as  the  heroic  love  of  comrades  or 
the  last  hysteria  of  the  herd  instinct.  It  has  been  said 
of  the  typical  English  aristocrats  of  the  Government  offi 
ces  that  they  resemble  certain  ornamental  fountains  and 
play  from  ten  till  four ;  and  it  is  true  that  an  Englishman, 
even  an  English  aristocrat,  is  not  always  inclined  to  play 
any  more  than  to  work.  But  American  sociability  is 
not  like  the  Trafalgar  fountains.  It  is  like  Niagara.  It 
never  stops,  under  the  silent  stars  or  the  rolling  storms. 
There  seems  always  to  be  the  same  human  heat  and 
pressure  behind  it;  it  is  like  the  central  heating  of  hotels 
as  explained  in  the  advertisements  and  announcements. 
The  temperature  can  be  regulated ;  but  it  is  not.  And  it 
is  always  rather  overpowering  for  an  Englishman,  whose 
mood  changes  like  his  own  mutable  and  shifting  sky. 
The  English  mood  is  very  like  the  English  weather;  it  is 
a  nuisance  and  a  national  necessity.  \ 


278  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

If  any  one  wishes  to  understand  the  quarrel  between 
Dickens  and  the  Americans,  let  him  turn  to  that  chapter 
in  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  in  which  young  Martin  has  to  re 
ceive  endless  defiles  and  deputations  of  total  strangers 
each  announced  by  name  and  demanding  formal  caluta- 
tion.  There  are  several  things  to  be  noticed  about  this 
incident.  To  begin  with,  it  did  not  happen  to  Martin 
Chuzzlewit ;  but  it  did  happen  to  Charles  Dickens.  Dick 
ens  is  incorporating  almost  without  alteration  a  passage 
from  a  diary  in  the  middle  of  a  story ;  as  he  did  when  he 
included  the  admirable  account  of  the  prison  petition  of 
John  Dickens  as  the  prison  petition  of  Wilkins  Micawber. 
There  is  no  particular  reason  why  even  the  gregarious 
Americans  should  so  throng  the  portals  of  a  perfectly 
obscure  steerage  passenger  like  young  Chuzzlewit. 
There  was  every  reason  why  they  should  throng  the 
portals  of  the  author  of  Pickwick  and  Oliver  Twist. 
And  no  doubt  they  did.  If  I  may  be  permitted  the  alea 
tory  image,  you  bet  they  did.  Similar  troops  of 
sociable  human  beings  have  visited  much  more  insignif 
icant  English  travellers  in  America,  with  some  of  whom 
I  am  myself  acquainted.  I  myself  have  the  luck  to  be  a 
little  more  stodgy  and  less  sensitive  than  many  of  my 
countrymen;  and  certainly  less  sensitive  than  Dickens. 
But  I  know  what  it  was  that  annoyed  him  about  that 
unending  and  unchanging  stream  of  American  visitors; 
it  was  the  unending  and  unchanging  stream  of  American 
sociability  and  high  spirits.  A  people  living  on  such  a 
lofty  but  level  tableland  do  not  understand  the  ups  and 
downs  of  the  English  temperament;  the  temper  of  a 
nation  of  eccentrics  or  (as  they  used  to  be  called)  of 
humorists.  There  is  something  very  national  in  the  very 
name  of  the  old  play  of  Every  Man  in  His  Humour. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  '279 

But  the  play  more  often  acted  in  real  life  is  'Every  Man 
Out  of  His  Humour/  It  is  true,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
said,  that  an  Englishman  wants  to  do  as  he  likes ;  but  it  is 
not  always  true  even  that  he  likes  what  he  likes.  An 
Englishman  can  be  friendly  and  yet  not  feel  friendly. 
Or  he  can  be  friendly  and  yet  not  feel  hospitable.  Or 
he  can  feel  hospitable  and  yet  not  welcome  those  whom 
he  really  loves.  He  can  think,  almost  with  tears  of 
tenderness,  about  people  at  a  distance  who  would  be 
bares  if  they  came  in  at  the  door. 

American  sociability  sweeps  away  any  such  subtlety. 
It  cannot  be  expected  to  understand  the  paradox  or 
perversity  of  the  Englishman,  who  thus  can  feel  friendly 
and  avoid  friends.  That  is  the  truth  in  the  suggestion 
that  Dickens  was  sentimental.  It  means  that  he  prob 
ably  felt  most  sociable  when  he  was  solitary.  In  all 
these  attempts  to  describe  the  indescribable,  to  indicate 
the  real  but  unconscious  differences  between  the  two 
peoples,  I  have  tried  to  balance  my  words  without  the 
irrelevant  bias  of  praise  and  blame.  Both  characteristics 
always  cut  both  ways.  On  one  side  this  comradeship 
makes  possible  a  certain  communal  courage,  a  demo 
cratic  derision  of  rich  men  in  high  places,  that  is  not 
easy  in  our  smaller  and  more  stratified  society.  On 
the  other  hand  the  Englishman  has  certainly  more  liberty, 
if  less  equality  and  fraternity.  But  the  richest  compen 
sation  of  the  Englishman  is  not  even  in  the  word  liberty/ 
but  rather  in  the  word  'poetry.'  That  humour  of  escape 
or  seclusion,  that  genial  isolation,  that  healing  of  wounded 
friendship  by  what  Christian  Science  would  call 
absent  treatment,  that  is  the  best  atmosphere  of  all  for 
the  creation  of  great  poetry ;  and  out  of  that  came  'bare 
ruined  choirs  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang'  and  'thou 


280  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

wast  not  made  for  death,  immortal  bird.'  In  this  sense 
it  is  indeed  true  that  poetry  is  emotion  remembered  in 
tranquillity;  which  may  be  extended  to  mean  affection 
remembered  in  loneliness.  There  is  in  it  a  spirit  not 
only  of  detachment  but  even  of  distance;  a  spirit  which 
does  desire,  as  in  the  old  English  rhyme,  to  be  not  only 
over  the  hills  but  also  far  away.  In  other  words,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  true  that  the  Englishman  is  an  exception  to  the 
great  truth  of  Aristotle,  it  is  because  he  is  not  so  near  to 
Aristotle  as  he  is  to  Homer.  In  so  far  as  he  is  not  by 
nature  a  political  animal,  it  is  because  he  is  a  poetical 
animal.  We  see  it  in  his  relations  to  the  other  animals  ; 
his  quaint  and  almost  illogical  love  of  dogs  and  horses 
and  dependants  whose  political  rights  cannot  possibly  be 
defined  in  logic.  Many  forms  of  hunting  or  fishing  are 
but  an  excuse  for  the  same  thing  which  the  shameless 
literary  man  does  without  any  excuse.  Sport  is  speech 
less  poetry.  It  would  be  easy  for  a  foreigner,  by  taking 
a  few  liberties  with  the  facts,  to  make  a  satire  about  the 
sort  of  silent  Shelley  who  decides  ultimately  to  shoot  the 
skylark.  It  would  be  easy  to  answer  these  poetic  sug 
gestions,  by  saying  that  he  himself  might  be  responsible 
for  ruining  the  choirs  where  late  sweet  birds  sang, 
or  that  the  immortal  bird  was  likely  to  be  mortal  when 
he  was  out  with  his  gun.  But  these  international  satires 
are  never  just;  and  the  real  relations  of  an  Englishman 
and  an  English  bird  are  far  more  delicate.  It  would  be 
equally  easy  and  equally  unjust  to  suggest  a  similar  satire 
against  American  democracy;  and  represent  Americans 
merely  as  birds  of  a  feather  who  can  do  nothing  but  flock 
together.  But  this  again  leaves  out  the  fact  that  at  least 
it  is  not  the  white  feather;  that  democracy  is  capable  of 
defiance  and  of  death  for  an  idea.  Touching  the  souls 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  281 

of  great  nations,  these  criticisms  are  generally  false  be 
cause  they  are  critical. 

But  when  we  are  quite  sure  that  we  rejoice  in  a  na 
tion's  strength,  then  and  not  before  we  are  justified  in 
judging  its  weakness.  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  rejoice 
in  any  democratic  success  without  arriere  pensee ;  and  no 
body  who  knows  me  will  credit  me  with  a  covert  sneer 
at  civic  equality.  And  this  being  granted,  I  do  think 
there  is  a  danger  in  the  gregariousness  of  American  so 
ciety.  The  danger  of  democracy  is  not  anarchy;  as 
I  have  said,  it  is  convention.  And  it  is  touching  this  that 
all  my  experience  has  increased  my  conviction  that  a  great 
deal  that  is  called  female  emancipation  has  merely  been 
the  increase  of  female  convention.  Now  the  males  of 
every  community  are  far  too  conventional;  it  was  the 
females  who  were  individual  and  criticised  the  conven 
tions  of  the  tribe.  If  the  females  become  conventional 
also,  there  is  a  danger  of  individuality  being  lost.  This 
indeed  is  not  peculiar  to  America;  it  is  common  to  the 
whole  modern  industrial  world,  and  to  everything  which 
substitutes  the  impersonal  atmosphere  of  the  state  for 
the  personal  atmosphere  of  the  home.  But  it  is  empha 
sised  in  America  by  the  curious  contradiction  that  Ameri 
cans  do  in  theory  value  and  even  venerate  the  individual. 
But  individualism  is  the  reverse  of  individuality.  Where 
men  are  trying  to  compete  with  each  other  they  are  try 
ing  to  copy  each  other.  They  become  standardised  by 
the  very  standard  of  self.  Personality,  in  becoming  a 
conscious  ideal,  becomes  a  common  ideal.  In  this  respect 
perhaps  there  is  really  something  to  be  learnt  from  the 
Englishman  with  his  turn  or  twist  in  the  direction  of 
private  life.  Those  who  have  travelled  in  such  a  fash 
ion  as  to  see  all  the  American  hotels  and  none  of  the 


282  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

American  houses  are  sometimes  driven  to  the  excess  of 
saying  that  the  Americans  have  no  private  life.  But 
even  if  the  exaggeration  has  a  hint  of  truth,  we  must  bal 
ance  it  with  the  corresponding  truth;  that  the  English 
have  no  public  life.  They  on  their  side  have  still  to 
learn  the  meaning  of  the  public  thing,  the  republic;  and 
how  great  are  the  dangers  of  cowardice  and  corruption 
when  the  very  state  itself  has  become  a  state  secret. 

The  English  are  patriotic;  but  patriotism  is  the  un 
conscious  form  of  nationalism.  It  is  being  national  with 
out  understanding  the  meaning  of  a  nation.  The  Ameri 
cans  are  on  the  whole  too  self-conscious,  kept  moving  too 
much  in  the  pace  of  public  life,  with  all  its  temptations 
to  superficiality  and  fashion;  too  much  aware  of  outside 
opinion  and  with  too  much  appetite  for  outside  criticism. 
But  the  English  are  much  too  unconscious;  and  would 
be  the  better  for  an  increase  in  many  forms  of  conscious 
ness,  including  consciousness  of  sin.  But  even  their" 
sin  is  ignorance  of  their  real  virtue.  The  most  admirable 
English  things  are  not  the  things  that  are  most  admired 
by  the  English,  or  for  which  the  English  admire  them 
selves.  They  are  things  now  blindly  neglected  and  in 
daily  danger  of  being  destroyed.  It  is  all  the  worse  that 
they  should  be  destroyed,  because  there  is  really  nothing 
like  them  in  the  world.  That  is  why  I  have  suggested  a 
note  of  nationalism  rather  than  patriotism  for  the  Eng 
lish  ;  the  power  of  seeing  their  nation  as  a  nation  and  not 
as  the  nature  of  things.  We  say  of  some  ballad  from 
the  Balkans  or  some  peasant  costume  in  the  Netherlands 
that  it  is  unique;  but  the  good  things  of  England  really 
are  unique.  Our  very  isolation  from  continental  wars 
and  revolutionary  reconstructions  have  kept  them  unique. 
The  particular  kind  of  beauty  there  is  in  an  English 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ENGLAND  283 

village,  the  particular  kind  of  humour  there  is  in  an  Eng 
lish  public-house,  are  things  that  cannot  be  found  in 
lands  where  the  village  is  far  more  simply  and  equally 
governed,  or  where  the  vine  is  far  more  honourably 
served  and  praised.  Yet  we  shall  not  save  them  by 
merely  sinking  into  them  with  the  conservative  sort  of 
contentment,  even  if  the  commercial  capacity  of  our 
plutocratic  reforms  would  allow  us  to  do  so.  We  must 
in  a  sense  get  far  away  from  England  in  order  to  behold 
her ;  we  must  rise  above  patriotism  in  order  to  be  practi 
cally  patriotic;  we  must  have  some  sense  of  more  varied 
and  remote  things  before  these  vanishing  virtues  can  be 
seen  suddenly  for  what  they  are;  almost  as  one  might 
fancy  that  a  man  would  have  to  rise  to  the  dizziest  heights 
of  the  divine  understanding  before  he  saw,  as  from  a 
peak  far  above  a  whirlpool,  how  precious  is  his  perishing 
soul. 


THE  FUTURE   OF  DEMOCRACY 

THE  title  of  this  final  chapter  requires  an  apology. 
I  do  not  need  be  reminded,  alas,  that  the  whole 
book  requires  an  apology.  It  is  written  in  ac 
cordance  with  a  ritual  or  custom  in  which  I  could  see  no 
particular  harm,  and  which  gives  me  a  very  interesting 
subject,  but  a  custom  which  it  would  be  not  altogether 
easy  to  justify  in  logic.  Everybody  who  goes  to  America 
for  a  short  time  is  expected  to  write  a  book;  and  nearly 
everybody  does.  A  man  who  takes  a  holiday  at  Trou- 
ville  or  Dieppe  is  not  confronted  on  his  return  with  the 
question,  'When  is  your  book  on  France  going  to  appear  ?' 
A  man  who  betakes  himself  to  Switzerland  for  the 
winter  sports  is  not  instantly  pinned  by  the  statement, 
'I  suppose  your  History  of  the  Helvetian  Republic  is 
coming  out  this  spring?'  Lecturing,  at  least  my  kind  of 
lecturing,  is  not  much  more  serious  or  meritorious  than 
ski-ing  or  sea-bathing;  and  it  happens  to  afford  the  holi 
day-maker  far  less  opportunity  of  seeing  the  daily  life 
of  the  people.  Of  all  this  I  am  only  too  well  aware;  and 
my  only  defence  is  that  I  am  at  least  sincere  in  my  enjoy 
ment  and  appreciation  of  America,  and  equally  sincere 
in  my  interest  in  its  most  serious  problem,  which  I  think 
a  very  serious  problem  indeed;  the  problem  of  democracy 
in  the  modern  world.  Democracy  may  be  a  very  obvious 
and  facile  affair  for  "plutocrats  and  politicians  who  only- 
have  to  use  it  as  a  rhetorical  term.  But  democracy  is  a 
very  serious  problem  for  democrats.  I  certainly  do  not 
apologise  for  the  word  democracy ;  but  I  do  apologise  for 

284 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY    285 

the  word  future.  I  am  no  Futurist;  and  any  conjectures 
I  make  must  be  taken  with  a  grain  of  salt  which  is  indeed 
the  salt  of  the  earth;  the  descent  and  moderate  humility 
which  comes  from  a  belief  in  free  will.  That  faith  is  in 
itself  a  divine  doubt.  I  do  not  believe  in  any  of  the 
scientific  predictions  about  mankind;  I  notice  that  they 
always  fail  to  predict  any  of  the  purely  human  develop 
ments  of  men;  I  also  notice  that  even  their  successes 
prove  the  same  truth  as  their  failures;  for  their  success 
ful  predictions  are  not  about  men  but  about  machines. 
But  there  are  two  things  which  a  man  may  reasonably 
do,  in  stating  the  probabilities  of  a  problem,  which  do 
not  involve  any  claim  to  be  a  prophet.  The  first  is  to 
tell  the  truth,  and  especially  the  neglected  truth,  about 
the  tendencies  that  have  already  accumulated  in  human 
history;  any  miscalculation  about  which  must  at  least 
mislead  us  in  any  case.  We  cannot  be  certain  of  being 
right  about  the  future;  but  we  can  be  almost  certain  of 
being  wrong  about  the  future,  if  we  are  wrong  about  the 
past.  The  other  thing  that  he  can  da  is  to  note  what 
ideas  necessarily  go  together  by  their  own  nature;  what 
ideas  will  triumph  together  or  fall  together.  Hence  it 
foilows  that  this  chapter  must  consist  of  two  things. 
The  first  is  a  summary  of  what  has  really  happened  to 
the  idea  of  democracy  in  recent  times ;  the  second  a  sug 
gestion  of  the  fundamental  doctrine  which  is  necessary 
for  its  triumph  at  any  time. 

The  last  hundred  years  have  seen  a  general  decline 
in  the  democratic  idea.  If  there  be  anybody  left  to 
whom  this  historical  truth  appears  a  paradox,  it  is  only 
because  during  that  period  nobody  has  been  taught  his 
tory,  least  of  all  the  history  of  ideas.  If  a  sort  of  in 
tellectual  inquisition  had  been  established,  for  the  defini- 


286  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

tion  and  differentiation  of  heresies,  it  would  have  been 
found  that  the  original  republican  orthodoxy  had  suffered 
more  and  more  from  secessions,  schisms  and  backslid- 
ings.  The  highest  point  of  democratic  idealism  and 
conviction  was  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cent 
ury,  when  the  American  .Republic  was  'dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  equal/  It  was  then  that 
the  largest  number  of  men  had  the  most  serious  sort  of 
conviction  that  the  political  problem  could  be  solved  by 
the  vote  of  peoples  instead  of  the  arbitrary  power  of 
princes  and  privileged  orders.  These  men  encountered 
various  difficulties  and  made  various  compromises  in 
relation  to  the  practical  politics  of  their  time ;  in  England 
they  preserved  aristocracy;  in  America  they  preserved 
slavery.  But  though  they  had  more  difficulties,  they  had 
less  doubt.  Since  their  time  democracy  has  been  steadily 
disintegrated  by  doubts;  and  these  political  doubts  have 
been  contemporary  with  and  often  identical  with  re 
ligious  doubts.  This  fact  could  be  followed  over  almost 
the  whole  field  of  the  modern  world;  in  this  place  it  will 
be  more  appropriate  to  take  the  great  American  ex 
ample  of  slavery.  I  have  found  traces  in  all  sorts  of 
intelligent  quarters  of  an  extraordinary  idea  that  all 
the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  owned  black  men  like  beasts 
of  burden  because  they  knew  no  better,  until  the  light 
of  liberty  was  revealed  to  them  by  John  Brown  and  Mrs. 
Beecher  Stowe.  One  of  the  best  weekly  papers  in  Eng 
land  said  recently  that  even  those  who  drew  up  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence  did  not  include  negroes  in  its 
generalisation  about  humanity.  This  is  quite  consistent 
with  the  current  convention,  in  which  we  were  all  brought 
up;  the  theory  that  the  heart  of  humanity  broadens 
in  ever  larger  circles  of  brotherhood,  till  we  pass  from 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         287 

embracing  a  black  man  to  adoring  a  black  beetle.  Un 
fortunately  it  is  quite  inconsistent  with  the  facts  of 
American  history.  The  facts  show  that,  in  this  problem 
of  the  Old  South,  the  eighteenth  century  was  more  lib 
eral  than  the  nineteenth  century.  There  was  more  sym 
pathy  for  the  negro  in  the  school  of  Jefferson  than  in 
the  school  of  Jefferson  Davis.  Jefferson,  in  the  dark 
estate  of  his  simple  Deism,  said  the  sight  of  slavery  in 
hi*s  country  made  him  tremble,  remembering  that  God 
is  just.  His  fellow  Southerners,  after  a  century  of  the 
world's  advance,  said  that  slavery  in  itself  was  good, 
when  they  did  not  go  farther  and  say  that  negroes  in 
themselves  were  bad.  And  they  were  supported  in  this 
by  the  great  and  growing  modern  suspicion  that  nature 
is  unjust.  Difficulties  seemed  inevitably  to  delay  justice, 
to  the  mind  of  Jefferson ;  but  so  they  did  to  the  mind  of 
Lincoln.  But  that  the  slave  was  human  and  the  servitude 
inhuman — that  was,  if  anything,  clearer  to  Jefferson  than 
to  Lincoln.  The  fact  is  that  the  utter  separation  and  sub 
ordination  of  the  black  like  a  beast  was  a  progress;  it  was 
a  growth  of  nineteenth-century  enlightenment  and  ex 
periment;  a  triumph  of  science  over  superstition.  It 
was  'the  way  the  world  was  going,'  as  Mathew  Arnold 
reverentially  remarked  in  some  connection;  perhaps  as 
part  of  a  definition  of  God.  Anyhow,  it  was  not  Jeffer 
son's  definition  of  God.  He  fancied,  in  his  far-off  pa- 
triarchial  way,  a  Father  who  had  made  all  men  brothers ; 
and  brutally  unbrotherly  as  was  the  practice,  such  demo- 
cratical  Deists  never  dreamed  of  denying  the  theory. 
It  was  not  until  the  scientific  sophistries  began  that 
brotherhood  was  really  disputed.  Gobineau,  who  began 
most  of  the  modern  talk  about  the  superiority  and  in 
feriority  of  racial  stocks,  was  seized  upon  eagerly  by  the 


288  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

less  generous  of  the  slave-owners  and  trumpeted  as  a 
new  truth  of  science  and  a  new  defence  of  slavery.  It 
was  not  really  until  the  dawn  of  Darwinism,  when  all 
our  social  relations  began  to  smell  of  the*  monkey-house, 
that  men  thought  of  the  barbarian  as  only  a  first  and  the 
baboon  as  a  second  cousin.  The  full  servile  philosophy 
has  been  a  modern  and  even  a  recent  thing;  made  in  an 
age  whose  inevitable  deity  was  the  Missing  Link.  The 
Missing  Link  was  a  true  metaphor  in  more  ways  than 
one;  and  most  of  all  in  its  suggestion  of  a  chain. 

By  a  symbolic  coincidence,  indeed,  slavery  grew  more 
brazen  and  brutal  under  the  encouragement  of  more  than 
one  movement  of  the  progressive  sort.  Its  youth  was  re 
newed  for  it  by  the  industrial  prosperity  of  Lancashire; 
and  under  that  influence  it  became  a  commercial  and 
competitive  instead  of  a  patriarchal  and  customary  thing, 
We  may  say  with  no  exaggerative  irony  that  the  uncon 
scious  patrons  of  slavery  were  Huxley  and  Cobden.  The 
machines  of  Manchester  were  manufacturing  a  great 
many  more  things  than  the  manufacturers  knew  en- 
wanted  to  know;  but  they  were  certainly  manufacturing 
the  fetters  of  the  slave,  doubtless  out  of  the  best  quality 
of  steel  and  iron.  But  this  is  a  minor  illustration  of 
the  modern  tendency,  as  compared  with  the  main  stream 
of  scepticism  which  was  destroying  democracy.  Evo 
lution  became  more  and  more  a  vision  of  the  break-up 
of  our  brotherhood,  till  by  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  genius  of  its  greatest  scientific  romancer 
saw  it  end  in  the  anthropophagous  antics  of  the  Time 
Machine.  So  far  from  evolution  lifting  us  above  the 
idea  of  enslaving  men,  it  was  providing  us  at  least  with 
a  logical  and  potential  argument  for  eating  them.  In  the 
case  of  the  American  negroes,  it  may  be  remarked,  it 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         289 

does  at  any  rate  permit  the  preliminary  course  of  roast 
ing  them.  All  this  materialistic  hardening,  which  re 
placed  the  remorse  of  Jefferson,  was  part  of  the  growing 
evolutionary  suspicion  that  savages  were  not  a  part  of 
the  human  race,  or  rather  that  there  was  really  no  such 
thing  as  the  human  race.  The  South  had  begun  by 
agreeing  reluctantly  to  the  enslavement  of  men.  The 
South  ended  by  agreeing  equally  reluctantly  to  the 
emancipation  of  monkeys. 

That  is  what  had  happened  to  the  democratic  ideal 
in  a  hundred  years.  Anybody  can  test  it  by  comparing 
the  final  phase,  I  will  not  say  with  the  ideal  of  Jefferson, 
but  with  the  ideal  of  Johnson.  There  was  far  more 
horror  of  slavery  in  an  eighteenth-century  Tory  like 
Dr.  Johnson  than  in  a  nineteenth-century  democrat  like 
Stephen  Douglas.  Stephen  Douglas  may  be  mentioned 
because  he  is  a  very  representative  type  of  the  age  of 
evolution  and  expansion;  a  man  thinking  in  continents, 
like  Cecil  Rhodes,  human  and  hopeful  in  a  truly 
American  fashion,  and  as  a  consequence  cold  and 
careless  rather  than  hostile  in  the  matter  of  the  old 
mystical  doctrines  of  equality.  He  'did  not  care 
whether  slavery  was  voted  up  or  voted  down/  His 
great  opponent  Lincoln  did  indeed  care  very  much. 
But  it  was  an  intense  individual  conviction  with  Lin 
coln  exactly  as  it  was  with  Johnson.  I  doubt  if  the 
spirit  of  the  age  was  not  much  more  behind  Douglas 
and  his  westward  expansion  of  the  white  race.  I  am 
sure  that  more  and  more  men  were  coming  to  be  in  the 
particular  mental  condition  of  Douglas ;  men  in  whom 
the  old  moral  and  mystical  ideals  had  been  undermined 
by  doubt,  but  only  with  a  negative  effect  of  indifference. 
Their  positive  convictions  were  all  concerned  with  what 


290  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

some  called  progress  and  some  imperialism.  It  is  true 
that  there  was  a  sincere  sectional  enthusiasm  against 
slavery  in  the  North;  and  that  the  slaves  were  actually 
emancipated  in  the  nineteenth  century.  But  I  doubt 
whether  the  Aboliti'onists  would  ever  have  secured  Aboli 
tion.  Abolition  was  a  by-product  of  the  Civil  War; 
which  was  fought  for  quite  other  reasons.  Anyhow,  if 
slavery  had  somehow  survived  to  the  age  of  Rhodes  and 
Roosevelt  and  evolutionary  imperialism,  I  doubt  if  the 
slaves  would  ever  have  been  emancipated  at  all.  Cer 
tainly  if  it  had  survived  till  the  modern  movement  for 
the  Servile  State,  they  would  never  have  been  emanci 
pated  at  all.  Why  should  the  world  take  the  chains  off 
the  black  man  when  it  was  just  putting  them  on  the  white  ? 
And  in  so  far  as  we  owe  the  change  to  Lincoln,  we  owe 
it  to  Jefferson.  Exactly  what  gives  its  real  dignity  to 
the  figure  of  Lincoln  is  that  he  stands  invoking  a  primi 
tive  first  principle  of  the  age  of  innocence,  and  holding  up 
the  tables  of  an  ancient  law,  against  the  trend  of  the 
nineteenth  century;  repeating,  'We  hold  these  truths  to 
be  self-evident;  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  being  en 
dowed  by  their  Creator,  etc./  to  a  generation  that  was 
more  and  more  disposed  to  say  something  like  this :  'We 
hold  these  truths  to  be  probable  enough  for  pragmatists ; 
that  all  things  looking  like  men  were  evolved  somehow, 
being  endowed  by  heredity  and  environment  with  no 
equal  rights,  but  very  unequal  wrongs/  and  so  on.  I  do 
not  believe  that  creed,  left  to  itself,  would  ever  have 
founded  a  state ;  and  I  am  pretty  certain  that,  left  to  itself, 
it  would  never  have  overthrown  a  slave  state.  What 
it  did  do,  as  I  have  said,  was  to  produce  some  very  won 
derful  literary  and  artistic  flights  of  sceptical  imagination. 
The  world  did  have  new  visions,  if  they  were  visions  of 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         291 

monsters  in  the  moon  and  Martians  striding  about  like 
spiders  as  tall  as  the  sky,  and  the  workmen  and  capitalists 
becoming  two  separate  species,  so  that  one  could  devour 
the  other  as  gaily  and  greedily  as  a  cat  devours  a  bird. 
No  one  has  done  justice  to  the  meaning  of  Mr.  Wells 
and  his  original  departure  in  fantastic  fiction;  to  these 
nightmares  that  were  the  last  apocalypse  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  They  meant  that  the  bottom  had  fallen  out 
of  the  mind  at  last,  that  the  bridge  of  brotherhood  had 
broken  down  in  the  modern  brain,  letting  up  from  the 
chasms  this  infernal  light  like  a  dawn.  All  had  grown 
dizzy  with  degree  and  relativity;  so  that  there  would  not 
be  so  very  much  difference  between  eating  dog  and  eating 
darkie,  or  between  eating  darkie  and  eating  dago.  There 
were  different  sorts  of  apes ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  that 
we  were  the  superior  sort. 

Against  all  this  irresistible  force  stood  one  immovable 
post.  Against  all  this  dance  of  doubt  and  degree  stood 
something  that  can  best  be  symbolished  by  a  simple  exam 
ple.  An  ape  cannot  be  a  priest,  but  a  negro  can  be  a 
priest.  The  dogmatic  type  of  Christianity,  especially 
the  Catholic  type  of  Christianity,  had  riveted  itself  irre 
vocably  to  the  manhood  of  all  men.  Where  its  faith  was 
fixed  by  creeds  and  councils  it  could  not  save  itself  even 
by  surrender.  It  could  not  gradually  dilute  democracy, 
as  could  a  merely  sceptical  or  secular  democrat.  There 
stood,  in  fact  or  in*  possibility,  the  solid  and  smiling  figure 
of  a  black  bishop.  And  he  was  either  a  man' claiming  the 
most  towering  spiritual  privileges  of  a  man,  or  he  was 
the  mere  buffoonery  and  blasphemy  of  a  monkey  in  a 
mitre.  That  is  the  point  about  Christian  and  Catholic 
democracy;  it  is  not  that  it  is  necessarily  at  any  moment 
more  democratic,  it  is  that  its  indestructible  minimum 


292  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

of  democracy  really  is  indestructible.  And  by  the  nature 
of  things  that  mystical  democracy  was  destined  to  survive, 
when  every  other  sort  of  democracy  was  free  to  destroy 
itself.  And  whenever  democacy  destroying  itself  is  sud 
denly  moved  to  save  itself,  it  always  grasps  at  a  rag  or 
tag  of  that  old  tradition  that  alone  is  sure  of  itself.  Hun 
dreds  have  heard  the  story  about  the  mediaeval  dema 
gogue  who  went  about  repeating  the  rhyme 

When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman? 

Many  have  doubtless  offered  the  obvious  answer  to  the 
question,  The  Serpent.'  But  few  seem  to  have 
noticed  what  would  be  the  more  modern  answer 
to  the  question,  if  that  innocent  agitator  went  about  pro 
pounding  it.  'Adam  never  delved  and  Eve  never  span, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  they  never  existed.  They  are 
fragments  of  a  Chaldeo-Babylonian  mythos,  and  Adam 
is  only  a  slight  variation  of  Tag-Tug,  pronounced  Uttu. 
For  the  real  beginning  of  humanity  we  refer  you  to  Dar 
win's  Origin  of  Species/  And  then  the  modern  man 
would  go  on  to  justify  plutocracy  to  the  mediaeval  man 
by  talking  about  the  Struggle  for  Life  and  the  Survival 
of  the  Fittest;  and  how  the  strongest  man  seized  authority 
by  means  of  anarchy,  and  proved  himself  a  gentleman 
by  behaving  like  a  cad.  Now  I  do  not  base  my  beliefs 
on  the  theology  of  John  Ball,  or  on  the  literal  and  mate 
rialistic  reading  of  the  text  of  Genesis;  though  I  think 
the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve  infinitely  less  absurd  and  un 
likely  than  that  of  the  prehistoric  'strongest  man'  who 
could  fight  a  hundred  men.  But  I  do  note  the  fact  that 
the  idealism  of  the  leveller  could  be  put  in  the  form  of 
an  appeal  to  Scripture,  and  could  not  be  put  in  the  form 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         293 

of  an  appeal  to  Science.  And  I  do  note  also  that  demo 
crats  were  still  driven  to  make  the  same  appeal  even  in  the 
very  century  of  Science.  Tennyson  was,  if  ever  there 
was  one,  an  evolutionist  in  his  vision  and  an  aristocrat 
in  his  sympathies.  He  was  always  boasting  that  John 
Bull  was  evolutionary  and  not  revolutionary,  even  as 
these  Frenchmen.  He  did  not  pretend  to  have  any  creed 
beyond  faintly  trusting  the  larger  hope.  But  when  hu 
man  dignity  is  really  in  danger,  John  Bull  has  to  use  the 
same  old  argument  as  John  Ball.  He  tells  Lady  Clara 
Vere  de  Vere  that  'the  gardener  Adam  and  his  wife  smile 
at  the  claim  of  long  descent';  their  own  descent  being  by 
no  means  long.  Lady  Clara  might  surely  have  scored  off 
him  pretty  smartly  by  quoting  from  'Maud'  and  'In  Mem- 
oriam'  about  evolution  and  the  eft  that  was  lord  of  valley 
and  hill.  But  Tennyson  has  evidently  forgotten  all  about 
Darwin-and  the  long  descent  of  man.  If  this  was  true  of 
an  evolutionist  like  Tennyson,  it  was  naturally  ten  times 
truer  of  a  revolutionist  like  Jefferson.  The  Declaration 
of  Independence  dogmatically  bases  all  rights  on  the  fact 
that  God  created* all  men  equal;  and  it  is  right;  for  if  they 
were  not  created  equal,  they  were  certainly  evolved  un 
equal. 

There  is  no  basis  for  democracy  except  in  a  dogma 
about  the  divine  origin  of  man.  That  is  a  perfectly  sim 
ple  fact  which  the  modern  world  will  find  out  more  and 
more  to  be  a  fact.  Every  other  basis  is  a  sort  of  senti 
mental  confusion,  full  of  merely  verbal  echoes  of  the  older 
creeds.  Those  verbal  associations  are  always,  vain  for 
the  vital  purpose  of  constraining  the  tyrant.  An  idealist 
may  say  to  a  capitalist,  'Don't  you  sometimes  feel  in  the 
rich  twilight,  when  the  lights  twinkle  from  the  distant 
hamlet  in  the  hills,  that  all  humanity  is  a  holy  family?' 


294  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

But  it  is  equally  possible  for  the  capitalist  to  reply  with 
brevity  and  decision,  'No,  I  don't/  and  there  is  no  more 
disputing  about  it  further  than  about  the  beauty  of  a  fad 
ing  cloud.  And  the  modern  world  of  moods  is  a  world 
of  clouds,  even  if  some  of  them  are  thunderclouds. 

For  I  have  only  taken  here,  as  a  convenient  working 
model,  the  case  of  negro  slavery;  because  it  was  long 
peculiar  to  America  and  is  popularly  associated  with  it. 
It  is  more  and  more  obvious  that  the  line  is  no  longer 
running  between  black  and  white  but  between  rich-  and 
poor.  As  I  have  already  noted  in  the  case  of  Prohibi 
tion,  the  very  same  arguments,  of  the  inevitable  suicide 
of  the  ignorant,  of  the  impossibility  of  freedom  for  the 
unfit,  which  were  once  applied  to  barbarians  brought 
from  Africa  are  now  applied  to  citizens  born  in  America. 
It  is  argued  even  by  industrialists  that  industrialism  has 
produced  a  class  submerged  below  the  status  of  emanci 
pated  mankind.  They  imply  that  the  Missing  Link  is 
no  longer  missing,  even  from  England  or  the  Northern 
States,  and  that  the  factories  have  manufactured  their 
own  monkeys.  Scientific  hypotheses  about  the  feeble 
minded  and  the  criminal  type  will  supply  the  masters  of 
the  modern  world  with  more  and  more  excuses  for  de 
nying  the  dogma  of  equality  in  the  case  of  white  labour 
as  well  as  black.  And  any  man  who  knows  the  world 
knows  perfectly  well  that  to  tell  the  millionaires,  or  their 
servants,  that  they  are  disappointing  the  sentiments  of 
Thomas  Jefferson,  or  disregarding  a  creed  composed  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  will  be  about  as  effective  as 
telling  them  that  they  are  not  observing  the  creed  of 
St.  Athanasius  or  keeping  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict. 

The  world  cannot  keep  its  own  ideals.     The  secular 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         295 

order  cannot  make  secure  any  one  of  its  own  noble  and 
natural  conceptions  of  secular  perfection.  That  will  be 
found,  as  time  goes  on,  the  ultimate  argument  for  a 
Church  independent  of  the  world  and  the  secular  order: 
What  has  become  of  all  those  ideal  figures  from  the  Wise 
Man  of  the  Stoics  to  the  democratic  Deist  of  the  eight 
eenth  century?  What  has  become  of  all  that  purely  hu 
man  hierarchy  or  chivalry,  with  its  punctilious  pattern 
of  the  good  knight,  its  ardent  ambition  in  the  young 
squire  ?  The  very  name  of  knight  has  come  to  represent 
the  petty  triumph  of  a  profiteer,  and  the  very  word  squire 
the  petty  tyranny  of  a  landlord.  What  has  become  of 
all  that  golden  liberality  of  the  Humanists,  who  found  on 
the  high  tablelands  of  the  culture  of  Hellas  the  very  bal 
ance  of  repose  in  beauty  that  is  most  lacking  in  the  mod 
ern  world?  The  very  Greek  language  that  they  loved 
has  become  a  mere  label  for  snuffy  and  snobbish  dons, 
and  a  mere  cock-shy  for  cheap  and  half -educated  utilita 
rians,  who  make  it  a  symbol  of  superstition  and  reaction. 
We  have  lived  to  see  a  time  when  the  heroic  legend  of 
the  Republic  and  the  Citizen,  which  seemed  to  Jefferson 
the  eternal  youth  of  the  world,  has  begun  to  grow  old  in 
its  turn.  We  cannot  recover  the  earthly  estate  of  knight 
hood,  to  which  all  the  colours  and  complications  of  her 
aldry  seemed  as  fresh  and  natural  as  flowers.  We  can 
not  re-enact  the  intellectual  experiences  of  the  Humanists, 
for  whom  the  Greek  grammar  was  like  the  song  of  a  bird 
in  spring.  The  more  the  matter  is  considered  the  clearer 
it  will  seem  that  these  old  experiences  are  now  only  alive, 
where  they  have  found  a  lodgment  in  the  Catholic  tradi 
tion  of  Christendom,  and  made  themselves  friends  for 
ever.  St.  Francis  is  the  only  surviving  troubadour.  St. 


296  WHAT  I  SAW  IN  AMERICA 

Thomas  More  is  the  only  surviving  Humanist.     St.  Louis 
is  the  only  surviving  knight. 

It  would  be  the  worse  sort  of  insincerity,  therefore, 
to  conclude  even  so  hazy  an  outline  of  so  great  and  majes 
tic  a  matter  as  the  American  democratic  experiment,  with 
out  testifying  my  belief  that  to  this  also  the  same  ultimate 
test  will  come.  So  far  as  that  democracy  becomes  or 
remains  Catholic  and  Christian,  that  democracy  will  re 
main  democratic.  In  so  far  it  does  not,  it  will  become 
wildly  and  wickedly  undemocratic.  Its  rich  will  riot  with 
a  brutal  indifference  far  beyound  the  feeble  feudalism 
which  retains  some  shadow  of  responsibility  or  at  least 
of  patronage.  Its  wage-slaves  will  either  sink  into  hea 
then  slavery,  or  seek  relief  in  theories  that  are  destructive 
not  merely  in  method  but  in  aim;  since  they  are  but  the 
negations  of  the  human  appetites  oi  property  and  per 
sonality.  Eighteenth-century  ideals,  formulated  in  eight 
eenth-century  language,  have  no  longer  in  themselves  the 
power  to  hold  all  those  pagan  passions  back.  Even  those 
documents  depended  upon  Deism ;  their  real  strength  will 
survive  in  men  who  are  still  Deists.  And  the  men  who 
are  still  Deists  are  more  than  Deists.  Men  will  more  and 
more  realise  that  there  is  no  meaning  in  democracy  if 
there  is  no  meaning  in  anything;  and  that  there  is  no 
meaning  in  anything  if  the  universe  has  not  a  centre  of 
significance  and  an  authority  that  is  the  author  of  our 
rights.  There  is  truth  in  every  ancient  fable,  and 
there  is  here  even  something  of  it  in  the  fancy  that 
finds  the  symbol  of  the  Republic  in  the  bird  that  bore 
the  bolts  of  Jove.  Owls  and  bats  may  wander  where 
they  will  in  darkness,  and  for  them  as  for  the  sceptics 
the  universe  may  have  no  centre ;  kites  and  vultures  may 


THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY         297 

linger  as  they  like  over  carrion,  and  for  them  as  for  the 
plutocrats  existence  may  'have  no  origin  and  no  end ;  but  it 
was  far  back  in  the  land  of  legends,  where  instincts  find 
their  true  images,  that  the  cry  went  forth  tha,t  freedom  is 
an  eagle,  whose  glory  is  gazing  at  the  sun. 


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